3 ms·

Why don't they want to hear this? It's not really a secret, I'm pretty sure they know it. I'm not Dutch, but a near zero-tax policy (for the big players), with

Why don't they want to hear this? It's not really a secret, I'm pretty sure they know it. I'm not Dutch, but a near zero-tax policy (for the big players), with a stable low-corruption government, easy bureaucracy, EU and NATO member, a huge harbor, top infrastructure plus a highly skilled workforce and easy immigration policy is bound to attract every company out there.

meepmorp 6y ago
Knowing something and wanting to acknowledge it are two entirely different things.
dep_b 6y ago
Because for the plebs it's anything but a tax haven
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>Why don't they want to hear this? It's not really a secret, I'm pretty sure they know it. This is like the EU version of a Californian saying those dastardly Texans should be ashamed of their low taxes when BigCo announces they're moving to Texas. It's a backhanded way of implying that it's not a good thing or that they should be ashamed or whatever.
yulaow 6y ago
Dutch economists in EU institutions typically ask for higher taxes and austerity for the rest of the eu nations while trying to not talk about the zero-tax policy they themselves apply to corporation + laws that help in tax avoidance for corps with legal hq there.
- IkmoIkmo 6y ago
  > the zero-tax policy they themselves apply to corporation + laws that help in tax avoidance for corps with legal hq there. There's no such zero-tax policy. There simply is the liquidatieverliesregeling, which allows you to subtract not-yet-subtracted losses from investments overseas from the profits in the HQ. Shell is the common example. It has an HQ in the Netherlands, and many overseas investments. e.g. hundreds of places where it drills for oil in many different jurisdictions. Suppose 9 of these of these do not find profitable oil and thus make a loss of $10 each, and 1 of these does find oil and makes a profit of $100. The total profit for Shell is $100-90 = $10. Corporate taxes only tax profits, that's true around the world. However, because the 10 Shell entities are drilling for oil in 10 different jurisdictions, the one profitable company cannot deduct losses from other jurisdictions from its profits. Therefore the $100 is taxed at say 20%, so the income is $80. And the losses are still $90. So overal, worldwide Shell just made a $10 loss due to taxes, despite making a profit. The Netherlands' tax regime simply states that if you have an HQ, you can deduct all those losses which you haven't been able to deduct before, from the profits of the HQ. That's in principle a fair form of taxation. Second, it doesn't benefit the Netherlands tax-wise, because it reduces the tax income in the Netherlands, while profits overseas are still taxed overseas and generate income for those local jurisdictions. This idea that therefore the Netherlands has a zero-tax policy that's screwing other countries is nonsense. There are many other examples and discussions you can have about Dutch taxes creating issues overseas (the Netherlands is certainly not perfect), but the tax regime for corps with a legal HQ in the Netherlands isn't one of them.
  - joubert 6y ago
    > This idea that therefore the Netherlands has a zero-tax policy that's screwing other countries is nonsense. There are many other examples and discussions you can have about Dutch taxes creating issues overseas (the Netherlands is certainly not perfect), but the tax regime for corps with a legal HQ in the Netherlands isn't one of them. Sampling from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/business/netherlands-tax-avoidance.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/business/netherlands-tax-...: Of Nike: “ The sports apparel maker used a common, legal method of shifting profits to a tax haven, according to the consortium’s research. First, it allocated ownership of its “swoosh” trademark and other intellectual property to a subsidiary in Bermuda, which has no corporate income tax. Then, its subsidiary in Hilversum paid royalties for the use of the trademarks to the Bermuda unit. The royalties counted as business expenses and in that way avoided taxation in the Netherlands.” And more generally: “ The Netherlands long justified its laws by arguing that they encouraged multinational companies to establish their headquarters in the country, creating jobs and investment. More recently, however, legal thinking and public opinion have turned. Officials in Brussels have accused the Netherlands of violating the European Union’s rules by helping Ikea to shear its tax bill. And polls show that Dutch voters have become increasingly angry at what they see as special privileges for wealthy corporations paying little or nothing — middle-class residents of the Netherlands, by contrast, can easily pay more than half their income in taxes.”
    - nmfisher 6y ago
      IP cross-licensing/royalties is the biggest loophole when it comes to transfer pricing. The reason is pretty clear. There's usually no independent measure of value (because it's not like Apple/Nike/etc are licensing their brand to third parties) so it's very difficult for a tax authority to dispute the company's valuation concocted out of thin air. On the other hand, IP does cost money to develop, and it's often developed in one country but used in another. Presumably you wouldn't want to just remove IP tax-deductibility outright. It's such an absurdly exploitable loophole, though, that I'm beginning to take the view that intra-group licensing arrangements should basically be ignored for tax deductibility purposes. Under my revised framework, companies can still deduct consolidated IP costs, but only at the HQ level (i.e. not in between subsidiary groups). The end result would be Google Australia paying slightly more tax in Australia, but Google USA pays slightly less tax in the USA. I really don't see that as a problem, given how rapacious these companies have been at exploiting the existing arrangements. Interested to know if others have thoughts on this arrangement.
simonh 6y ago
A bunch of the top market maker HFT outfits moved to Amsterdam a couple of years ago due to Brexit. I have contacts at two of them. It’s much cheaper than London, plenty of smart graduates who speak excellent English and are very Anglo/US friendly, solid financial regulatory structure and all the advantages you listed. Plus it’s only an hour to City Airport in London, which means you arrive about the same time you left if popping into the Square Mile in the morning for a meeting. The loss of an hour on the return journey at the end of the day isn’t as important. It’s also close to the middle between London, Frankfurt and Berlin. Great bars and restaurants too.
- rowanG077 6y ago
  What? Please tell me how I can go from london to Amsterdam in an hour.
  - jiofih 6y ago
    Planes
    - rowanG077 6y ago
      That's not true you lose hours in the airports.
      - teh_klev 6y ago
        Can confirm. I used to fly from City to Schiphol on a regular basis, the reality is a 2-3 hour journey on each end once you factor in travel to the airport (even from Docklands), hanging about, security (and this was before 9/11), late flights, and then just getting out of Schiphol into a taxi to start your journey to the financial centre. Amsterdam being "just an hour away" is a complete myth, much like any other flying for business in Europe.
      - stevesimmons 6y ago
        I've lived/worked between Amsterdam and London for years. Eurostar is my clear preference if you can get a straight through train without changing in Brussels. Departs St Pancras at 5:11pm. Travel Standard Premier so you get dinner at your seat at 5:15pm. 4h trip, no changes. Arrive at Ams Central Station at 10:20pm. Arrive at home/hotel by 10:40pm. Slower, but extremely comfortable. And you can work productively all the way. For travelling in the morning, the 7:25am flight from LCY is good. The smaller airport is much quicker to get through than LHR or LGW. For the return trip from Amsterdam to London, you do lose a lot of time at Schiphol airport. Flying into LCY makes up for it though, especially if you work in Canary Wharf. I'd typically take 20 mins from plane landing to sitting at my desk.
Udik 6y ago
Because it implies that their wealth is not due to hard work or excellent education, but mostly because they undercut the rest of the EU on companies taxation.
IkmoIkmo 6y ago
What zero-tax policy? The Netherlands has no such policy. There are of course a complex system of incentives and exemptions (e.g. for R&D) just like in any other country, but there's no general zero-tax policy or anything near it. Simply look at the corporate taxes as a percentage of Dutch GDP, it's among the highest in all of Europe: https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-on-corporate-profits.htm https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-on-corporate-profits.htm The Netherlands' tax system isn't perfect and there are certainly abuses, by the way. But I do want to add some nuance here. I won't go into non-corporate taxes because I assume that's not what is being talked about here, but the Netherlands also ranks among the highest in the world in total taxes as a percentage of GDP.

meepmorp 6y ago

Knowing something and wanting to acknowledge it are two entirely different things.

dep_b 6y ago

Because for the plebs it's anything but a tax haven

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

>Why don't they want to hear this? It's not really a secret, I'm pretty sure they know it. This is like the EU version of a Californian saying those dastardly Texans should be ashamed of their low taxes when BigCo announces they're moving to Texas. It's a backhanded way of implying that it's not a good thing or that they should be ashamed or whatever.

yulaow 6y ago

Dutch economists in EU institutions typically ask for higher taxes and austerity for the rest of the eu nations while trying to not talk about the zero-tax policy they themselves apply to corporation + laws that help in tax avoidance for corps with legal hq there.

IkmoIkmo 6y ago
> the zero-tax policy they themselves apply to corporation + laws that help in tax avoidance for corps with legal hq there. There's no such zero-tax policy. There simply is the liquidatieverliesregeling, which allows you to subtract not-yet-subtracted losses from investments overseas from the profits in the HQ. Shell is the common example. It has an HQ in the Netherlands, and many overseas investments. e.g. hundreds of places where it drills for oil in many different jurisdictions. Suppose 9 of these of these do not find profitable oil and thus make a loss of $10 each, and 1 of these does find oil and makes a profit of $100. The total profit for Shell is $100-90 = $10. Corporate taxes only tax profits, that's true around the world. However, because the 10 Shell entities are drilling for oil in 10 different jurisdictions, the one profitable company cannot deduct losses from other jurisdictions from its profits. Therefore the $100 is taxed at say 20%, so the income is $80. And the losses are still $90. So overal, worldwide Shell just made a $10 loss due to taxes, despite making a profit. The Netherlands' tax regime simply states that if you have an HQ, you can deduct all those losses which you haven't been able to deduct before, from the profits of the HQ. That's in principle a fair form of taxation. Second, it doesn't benefit the Netherlands tax-wise, because it reduces the tax income in the Netherlands, while profits overseas are still taxed overseas and generate income for those local jurisdictions. This idea that therefore the Netherlands has a zero-tax policy that's screwing other countries is nonsense. There are many other examples and discussions you can have about Dutch taxes creating issues overseas (the Netherlands is certainly not perfect), but the tax regime for corps with a legal HQ in the Netherlands isn't one of them.
- joubert 6y ago
  > This idea that therefore the Netherlands has a zero-tax policy that's screwing other countries is nonsense. There are many other examples and discussions you can have about Dutch taxes creating issues overseas (the Netherlands is certainly not perfect), but the tax regime for corps with a legal HQ in the Netherlands isn't one of them. Sampling from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/business/netherlands-tax-avoidance.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/business/netherlands-tax-...: Of Nike: “ The sports apparel maker used a common, legal method of shifting profits to a tax haven, according to the consortium’s research. First, it allocated ownership of its “swoosh” trademark and other intellectual property to a subsidiary in Bermuda, which has no corporate income tax. Then, its subsidiary in Hilversum paid royalties for the use of the trademarks to the Bermuda unit. The royalties counted as business expenses and in that way avoided taxation in the Netherlands.” And more generally: “ The Netherlands long justified its laws by arguing that they encouraged multinational companies to establish their headquarters in the country, creating jobs and investment. More recently, however, legal thinking and public opinion have turned. Officials in Brussels have accused the Netherlands of violating the European Union’s rules by helping Ikea to shear its tax bill. And polls show that Dutch voters have become increasingly angry at what they see as special privileges for wealthy corporations paying little or nothing — middle-class residents of the Netherlands, by contrast, can easily pay more than half their income in taxes.”
  - nmfisher 6y ago
    IP cross-licensing/royalties is the biggest loophole when it comes to transfer pricing. The reason is pretty clear. There's usually no independent measure of value (because it's not like Apple/Nike/etc are licensing their brand to third parties) so it's very difficult for a tax authority to dispute the company's valuation concocted out of thin air. On the other hand, IP does cost money to develop, and it's often developed in one country but used in another. Presumably you wouldn't want to just remove IP tax-deductibility outright. It's such an absurdly exploitable loophole, though, that I'm beginning to take the view that intra-group licensing arrangements should basically be ignored for tax deductibility purposes. Under my revised framework, companies can still deduct consolidated IP costs, but only at the HQ level (i.e. not in between subsidiary groups). The end result would be Google Australia paying slightly more tax in Australia, but Google USA pays slightly less tax in the USA. I really don't see that as a problem, given how rapacious these companies have been at exploiting the existing arrangements. Interested to know if others have thoughts on this arrangement.

simonh 6y ago

A bunch of the top market maker HFT outfits moved to Amsterdam a couple of years ago due to Brexit. I have contacts at two of them. It’s much cheaper than London, plenty of smart graduates who speak excellent English and are very Anglo/US friendly, solid financial regulatory structure and all the advantages you listed. Plus it’s only an hour to City Airport in London, which means you arrive about the same time you left if popping into the Square Mile in the morning for a meeting. The loss of an hour on the return journey at the end of the day isn’t as important. It’s also close to the middle between London, Frankfurt and Berlin. Great bars and restaurants too.

rowanG077 6y ago
What? Please tell me how I can go from london to Amsterdam in an hour.
- jiofih 6y ago
  Planes
  - rowanG077 6y ago
    That's not true you lose hours in the airports.
    - teh_klev 6y ago
      Can confirm. I used to fly from City to Schiphol on a regular basis, the reality is a 2-3 hour journey on each end once you factor in travel to the airport (even from Docklands), hanging about, security (and this was before 9/11), late flights, and then just getting out of Schiphol into a taxi to start your journey to the financial centre. Amsterdam being "just an hour away" is a complete myth, much like any other flying for business in Europe.
    - stevesimmons 6y ago
      I've lived/worked between Amsterdam and London for years. Eurostar is my clear preference if you can get a straight through train without changing in Brussels. Departs St Pancras at 5:11pm. Travel Standard Premier so you get dinner at your seat at 5:15pm. 4h trip, no changes. Arrive at Ams Central Station at 10:20pm. Arrive at home/hotel by 10:40pm. Slower, but extremely comfortable. And you can work productively all the way. For travelling in the morning, the 7:25am flight from LCY is good. The smaller airport is much quicker to get through than LHR or LGW. For the return trip from Amsterdam to London, you do lose a lot of time at Schiphol airport. Flying into LCY makes up for it though, especially if you work in Canary Wharf. I'd typically take 20 mins from plane landing to sitting at my desk.

Udik 6y ago

Because it implies that their wealth is not due to hard work or excellent education, but mostly because they undercut the rest of the EU on companies taxation.

IkmoIkmo 6y ago

What zero-tax policy? The Netherlands has no such policy. There are of course a complex system of incentives and exemptions (e.g. for R&D) just like in any other country, but there's no general zero-tax policy or anything near it. Simply look at the corporate taxes as a percentage of Dutch GDP, it's among the highest in all of Europe: https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-on-corporate-profits.htm https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-on-corporate-profits.htm The Netherlands' tax system isn't perfect and there are certainly abuses, by the way. But I do want to add some nuance here. I won't go into non-corporate taxes because I assume that's not what is being talked about here, but the Netherlands also ranks among the highest in the world in total taxes as a percentage of GDP.