box 3

• Leen Kraniotis

  Editor Economy

Hundreds of thousands of people who get paid tax paid years ago and the government who spends billions on it. Today the major recovery operation of the so-called Box 3 tax starts.

The Tax Authorities set today The Form Online With which people can reclaim money if they think they have paid too much wealth tax. The service must do this because of judgments of the Supreme Court, the highest court in the Netherlands. Five questions about this major repayment action.

Between 2017 and now, people may have to pay too much tax on their assets. The Supreme Court ruled that the way in which the tax authorities calculate that tax can be unfair.

The wealth tax is officially called the capital gains tax. The Tax and Customs Administration assumes that your assets yield a return. About savings you get interest, shares often rise in value and also yield dividend and houses are also worth more and yield income.

And you have to pay tax on that return. But the Tax Authorities did not look at how much return a person achieved per person. They assumed a so -called fictional return: an estimate of how much return you achieve on average every year. And from that estimated return you had to pay a part to the tax authorities. Which part differs per year, but always between 30 and 36 percent.

The criticism of the Supreme Court is that the actual return of people can be a lot lower than that fictional return. People then have to pay tax on a return that they have not achieved at all and that is unfair.

So people can now state what their actual returns were at the Tax Authorities. And if that was lower than the fictional return, they have to pay less or no wealth tax and can get money back. If it was higher, they do not have to pay extra tax. It is therefore always in favor of the taxpayer.

It only applies to people who have had to pay wealth efficiency levels at the annual tax return in the years from 2017 to the present. You have to pay it if you have more than a certain value in assets.

In 2017 that was more than 25,000 euros if you made a declaration as an individual and double, 50,000 euros, for a couple. For example, if you had 24,000 euros in savings in 2017 and no further box 3 possessions, you did not pay any won tax at all.

The tax -free capacity has risen sharply in recent years. For 2024 it is 57,000 euros for singles and 114,000 euros for couples. Do all your assets fall under box 3? No, not your household effects and also a private art collection. And also not the owner -occupied home you live in. Second or more houses are.

Before 2021 up to and including 2024, anyone who had to pay wealth tax can actually give up their returns. There are conditions for 2017 up to and including 2020, such as whether you have objected earlier.

The Tax and Customs Administration calls people to fill in the form only after they have received an invitation letter about a specific year. Forms completed are processed in the order of the letters sent.

That is entirely due to whether you had a lot of savings or shares or real estate. In total, the government thinks that more than half a million people get money back. These are logically mainly people with a lot of power. Because only then do you pay this tax.

And it can also vary greatly per year. For example, if you had many shares in 2022, chances are that you will get money back. Because the stock prices fell and then you soon had a negative return. But in 2023 it was completely different again.

The government expects that this scheme for the years 2017 up to and including 2024 will result in a loss of 6.4 billion in tax revenues.

Tax experts think that those loss amounts are probably too high. In practice, they expect people to be able to claim less money and that fewer people will reclaim money.

The system will remain the same in the coming years: the tax authorities will calculate with a fictional return and you must then deliver documents if you want to prove that your actual return is lower.

The plan is that there will be a new system in 2028, whereby the tax authorities immediately calculate a person’s actual return. Earlier introduction would become organizational and technically difficult.