In the United Kingdom, oil and gas companies will have to pay additional tax on their profits until 2025. The rate will go from 40 percent to 65 percent, British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak . said announced at the end of May.
Compensate population
The tax increase is part of his package of measures to offset the rising costs for the British population. Such a tax has also been introduced in Italy. Politicians there even want to tax banks that benefit from the increased energy prices, reported Reuters news agency at the beginning of June.
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In the Netherlands, Minister Rob Jetten (Climate and Energy) also received questions about such a tax from MPs Henri Bontenbal and Inge van Dijk (CDA) and Laurens Dassen van Volt: is such a tax not also possible in the Netherlands, to help poor families? compensate for their high energy bills?
No, is the answer from Jetten and state secretaries Hans Vijlbrief (Economic Affairs and Climate) and Marnix van Rij (Finance). Such an additional tax on ‘excessive profits (…) is not possible in the short term and has a number of bottlenecks’, do they write.
Many bottlenecks
The first bottleneck, according to the ministers, is that it is impossible to measure which part of the profits the companies now owe to the high energy prices. And if you cannot measure that, is the reasoning, then it is not possible to levy an extra tax on it.
It could also be that a company has started to work more efficiently and that part of the higher profit is due to this. An estimate would therefore have to be made and the government does not want to venture into that.
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Another sticking point is that it would take two years to introduce such an additional tax. In addition, according to the cabinet, it is not allowed, because extra taxation of a certain group of companies is in violation of state aid rules.
Jetten, Vijlbrief and Van Rij also point out that about 70 percent of Dutch oil and gas profits already go to the state. This is done through the normal corporate income tax and separate levies that exist for companies that are allowed to extract raw materials from Dutch soil.
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