More opportunities for additional assessments available from January 1, 2010 

The Dutch Revenue’s authority for imposing assessments was considerably expanded with effective from January 1, 2010, based on Section 16 of the General Tax Act (“GTA”). To put it briefly, this controversial amendment means that the inspector can impose an additional assessment without there being a new fact, if the taxpayer could have reasonably been expected to be aware that his or her assessment was too low due to a mistake. In other words: a taxpayer who is aware that his or her tax assessment is not correct, cannot expect that his or her tax affairs have been finalized for the relevant year.

In this article, the authors examine a number of imbalances in this new provision. They examine these from the perspective of current opportunities available for imposing assessments, developments in case law, and statements from the government during the legislative process.

The authors conclude that, with regard to various elements of the new authority for imposing assessments, the government’s intention is not the same as the explanation offered in the literal text of the legislation. The authors therefore suspect that the new authority to impose assessments will, in practice, lead to much debate, because they expect that the provision will be more widely applied than the government intended.

Original title: Kenbaar meer mogelijkheden tot navordering na 1 januari 2010