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I don’t know about the Netherlands, but I’m France for example “innovation subsidies” are basically just a way to give tax breaks to industry. Every company wit
by namdnay 5y ago
I don’t know about the Netherlands, but I’m France for example “innovation subsidies” are basically just a way to give tax breaks to industry. Every company with 100+ employees will have someone working on claiming as many projects as possible as “innovation” and claiming the relevant tax breaks
Very silly, but it does slightly reduce the prohibitive cost of labour
- clawoo 5y agoI'm from an EU country which is quite low on the pecking order. If we offered “innovation subsidies” to our businesses it would be considered state aid and we'd be in infringement.
- Maarten88 5y agoWe have those too in the Netherlands. Even small startup companies can apply and receive these tax breaks when they do technical innovation ('WBSO'). There are also tax-discounts for large and profitable companies ('innovatiebox') that innovate (companies like ASML, NXP) that Booking.com would probably benefit from too.
- amelius 5y agoIf Booking.com is innovative then we need a new definition for "innovative".
- throwaway-8c93 5y agoThere's a lot of corporate fraud like this, even in countries that have a reputation of being well governed. I personally saw a respectable Finnish company leeching on government innovation funds, asking employees to log their working hours under a specific project. The kicker - nobody in Finland was working on that project, in reality it was developed in another country.