SOMO’s FOI request uncovers years of lobbying against dividend tax
SOMO has conducted extensive research on the lobby against the dividend tax in order to uncover how the decision to abolish the tax came about.
Last year in November we published documents (obtained in 2016 via a Freedom of Information [FOI] request [Wob-procedure] submitted with Oxfam Novib) revealing that the VNO-NCW [Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers]and others have been lobbying against the dividend tax for more than ten years. We checked the diaries of the relevant Dutch government officials: who were Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Minister of Economic Affairs Eric Wiebes and State Secretary Menno Snel meeting with? And we showed how the abolition of dividend tax and the reduction of corporate taxes were used as compensation for measures to tackle tax avoidance, thanks to the years of lobbying by VNO-NCW and their associates.
Read the entire article (Dutch only) here.
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Jasper van Teeffelen
Researcher
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