NETHERLANDS Law and Practice Contributed by: Nathalie Idsinga and Mignon de Wilde, Arcagna
• The deemed return on “other investments” in Box 3 will be increased from 5.88% to 7.78%. • Biological children that are not legally recognised as a child by a taxpayer will be treated the same as children for gift and inheritance tax purposes. • Insofar as a marital agreement entitles a spouse to receive more than half of the total of the assets in a community of property, this is treated as a gift or inheritance. It is proposed that this measure entered into effect on 18 April 2025, the date the measure was announced. • The business succession regime will be amended by making the rules for qualifying shareholdings more stringent but making rules for the possession and continuation periods more lenient. 1.6 Transparency and Increased Global Reporting The Netherlands participates in the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) and several other multina - tional transparency initiatives. FATCA and CRS Under FATCA, Dutch financial institutions are required to register with the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and report information to the Dutch tax authorities regarding US reportable accounts and accounts held by non-compliant foreign financial institutions. Non- US entities that do not qualify as financial institutions must disclose their substantial US owners or certify that they have none. The Netherlands has also committed to the CRS, which requires financial institutions to identify their account holders. If an account holder is determined to be a tax resident of another country that partici - pates in the CRS, the financial institution must annu - ally report information about the account holder and the account. Automatic Exchange of Information BEPS Action 5 establishes an OECD framework for the mandatory exchange of information regarding specific categories of tax rulings. The Netherlands has committed to this framework. The information collected pursuant to BEPS Action 5 is exchanged bilaterally with the countries of residence of all related
parties and the countries of residence of the ultimate parent company and the immediate parent company. Under the Directive on Administrative Cooperation, the EU also requires automatic exchanges of informa - tion on “advance cross-border rulings” and “advance pricing arrangements” between EU member states. Unlike BEPS Action 5, the scope of the EU Directive is not limited to specific categories of rulings. Only rulings and pricing arrangements relating solely to domestic situations, or exclusively to the tax affairs of one or more natural persons, are excluded. The information to be exchanged under the EU Directive must be submitted to a central database accessible to all EU member states. UBO Register In response to the EU Anti-Money Laundering Direc - tive, the Netherlands has enacted the UBO Register Act, which establishes a register for the ultimate ben - eficial owners (UBOs) of certain corporate and other legal entities (the “UBO Register”). These entities are required to collect, maintain and register specific per - sonal information about their UBOs. Private limited companies, public limited companies, foundations, associations, mutual insurance associations, coop - eratives, limited partnerships and churches or spir - itual organisations incorporated or established under Dutch law are all subject to registration. Although the definition of a UBO varies by legal entity, generally, an individual must be registered if they hold an economic or controlling interest exceeding 25% in the entity. If no such individual exists, all members of the entity’s senior management must be registered as “pseudo- UBOs”. On 22 November 2022, the European Court of Justice ruled that public access to UBO information violates the fundamental rights to privacy and data protec - tion, rendering such access invalid. As a result, the Dutch government restricted access to the register. On 16 July 2025 a new law was entered into effect that governs the access to the UBO register. Based on this new law, competent authorities and institutions subject to the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financ - ing (Prevention) Act have access to the UBO register as well as all other parties that can demonstrate a legitimate interest. Journalists and certain social and
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