The Netherland seldom seeks fiscal information from countries known as tax havens, it emerges from research by Het Financieele Dagblad newspaper.
In recent years, the Netherlands has taken a lot of trouble to conclude treaties for the exchange of information with tax havens such as Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, the Cayman islands and Liechtenstein. The aim is to track down both individuals and companies that use constructions ot evade tax. A total of 28 treaties have been made, of which 18 have come into effect. The others await signature.
In total, the Netherlands only made 22 requests for fiscal information between 1 June 2008 and 1 June 2011. Over half (13) were made to Jersey. Requests were also made now and then to Guernsey. But the tax service has only once requested information from the Isle of Man, with which there has been a tax information agreement (TIEA) since as long ago as 1 January 2007.
The treaty with Liechtenstein, a country which experts say still shelters quite some Dutch ‘black savers’, came into effect on 1 December 2010. The Dutch tax service has made three requests to it in six months’ time.
Of the requests made, the finance ministry can only say that seven replies have been received from Jersey and three from Guernsey. No information is being released about the content and quality of the replies.
Edwin Visser, deputy Financial Affairs Director-General at the finance ministry, blames the limited number of requests on the short period during which the TIEAs have been in effect. Under the current TIEAs, information is also only given on request. “The aim is to achieve an automatic exchange of information. Such a treaty should then become the global standard.”
Geerten Michielse, director of the Center for Taxation and Public Governance in Amsterdam, believes that the formal requirements for a request form the main bottleneck. “It requires specialist knowledge to carry out such a TIEA request well.”
“It can be the case that the personnel at the tax service still know too little about the possibilities for requesting information via a TIEA. It is also difficult to meet the formal criteria of a request,” confirms Jan van Koningsveld. He worked for 25 years at the fiscal investigation service FIOD, in the latter years on the practical implementation of a number of TIEAs.
In 2009, the FIOD department involved in the development of TIEAS was transferred to the tax service in Almelo. Van Koningsveld and his colleague were not relocated with the department at this time. He says knowhow was lost as a result. A spokesman for the finance ministry has denied this.
