Audit of tax expenditure: more than €18 billion a year
In a letter of 19 March 2015 to the House of Representatives and a related web dossier, the Court of Audit draws attention to the amount of information available on tax expenditure.
The 86 tax expenditure schemes in the Netherlands are worth €18.5 billion every year. These tax subsidies reduce the tax that citizens and companies pay to the authorities. The Court of audit found that central government does not know whether or not many of these arrangements are effective. Thirteen of them – which cost the public purse €5.6 billion a year – may even be harmful to the environment. Internationally, the Netherlands and other countries called several years ago for schemes that harm the environment to be gradually phased out.
The letter is only in Dutch available.