4 ms·

I'm not sure why this is suddenly news. As far as I'm aware from my immigration inquiries, the Netherlands has had a "Box 3" unrealized capital gains tax for ma

• ivankra 11mo ago
  They had essentially a wealth tax in Box 3 - your investments/savings are deemed to have a fixed fictional yield on which you pay income tax. Currently, 6.17% yield x 32% tax = 2% wealth tax. Hurts just a little bit, but it's a smooth, predictable cash flow. They are replacing it with a much worse and untested economic policy - taxing unrealized capital gains every year. Not a big deal for relatively stable assets (real estate etc), but can explode in your face if you're into any risky volatile stuff (stocks, options, crypto) - they can crash next year, but your tax bill won't. Lack of liquidity can get you as well - you may have huge gains on paper, but for various reasons unable to sell in a reasonable timeframe and come up with equally huge amount of cash for the tax office - we're talking probably 30-50% tax here vs 2% under the old system. Double taxation if you have US passport - you're going to have to please both tax systems or pay double the tax. The outcome I'd guess would be an exodus of the rich / upper middle class, and then they either scrap it or tighten further with exit taxes. Oh and they're also scrapping the coveted "30% ruling" for expats. Probably can forget about ever being able to FIRE in Netherlands.