We don’t yet have a government after the elections in November but several tax changes for 2024 were decided at the September budget and will come into effect in January.

The good news is that the thresholds for higher rates of tax are shifting up slightly. For non-pensioners, the “lower” general tax rate will be 36.97% (up a fraction on this year) and from €75,518, the higher rate kicks in at 49.5%.

The bad news is that there are other changes aimed at taking more tax from people with an income from their own company.

“There will be two brackets in box 2, for dividends, and that’s a significant change,” said a tax expert from Blue Umbrella. “People who were taking a low salary from their company and had the rest in dividends, will have to pay a lot more in tax. It will not be as beneficial to start a BV limited company as it was in the past.”

Instead of a flat rate of 26.9% on dividends paid to someone with at least 5% in a company – considerably less than income tax would be – the new system will tax dividend payments of up to €67,000 at 24.5% but more than this at a rate of 33%.

Property

Landlords can expect to be treated less favourably next year too. A new law to scrap two-year contracts for tenants passed the Senate in November. Another set of proposals to impose rent control on more apartments for “middle” incomes is also going through parliament, with broad support.

“Investing in property might not be as lucrative and that’s also because of the high prices on the market as well as lower rents,” said the Blue Umbrella adviser. “You should assess if it’s still beneficial to rent out as a private landlord because local governments are bringing in measures to keep out investors.”

Childcare

It’s unclear what will happen to proposals for virtually free childcare at the moment or to the reform of “box 3”, dealing with assets. Tax will be levied in 2024 on an assumed gain of 1.03% for savings and 6.04% on other assets (not including your main home) with debts deducted against these at 2.7%. The tax is currently 36% on this assumed gain.

30% ruling

People with the 30% ruling will be unaffected by a new tightening of this tax allowance for specialist foreign workers whose skills cannot be found in the Netherlands – but new applications will have a much more modest tax break. Some employers are concerned it will be harder to fill critical jobs in future.

Self employment

Another thing to be aware of is new rules which are being drawn up to cut back on sham self employment. These rules target companies employing vast numbers of workers who are supposedly self-employed, thereby avoiding social security premiums.

The rules, which have yet to be approved by parliament and the senate, will introduce a minimum hourly wage of around €30 for freelancers plus tests on who is really in charge or takes the risks.

“The tax office will look more at people who are not really self-employed, who have just one client,” said the Blue Umbrella expert. “They will be looking to see if there’s an effective labour contract and if it is fictional self-employment, particularly in big companies that hire a lot of self-employed people like Deliveroo or Uber.”

He advised checking up on this if you have a business yourself. “A company that only employs self-employed people will have these discussions and the tax office will be paying this group more attention in future years,” he said. “So if you are an employer, make sure your freelancers have more than one contract, otherwise you will be paying the social security premiums.”

New government

But even if a new government takes a very different tone, the question is how much it can really do regarding taxes and benefits: the Netherlands is in its third quarter of recession and the Dutch central bank has warned of virtually no economic growth due to sluggish global trade.

“I don’t expect big changes next year,” said the Blue Umbrella expert.

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