Dutch Election 2012: political parties over entrepreneurship, what does that mean for you?

Dutch Election 2012: political parties over entrepreneurship, what does that mean for you?

The Dutch election of 2012 have come up with some changes for the modern form of work relations and entrepreneurs. We have decided to compare the programs on points that may be interesting for you as an entrepreneur. We have summarized our findings in the following text.

Collective basic insurance for self-employed professionals

The great common denominator in the election programs for self-employed professionals is improving the social services. The greatest political parties have all included in their election programs that they want to ensure security for self-employed professionals. This mostly concerns the creating of a collective basic insurance for matters such as the incapacity to work and pension. The plan not only entails the creation of these services, but also that these insurances are affordable for all self-employed professionals.

Aiming for more social security is, of course, a good development. However, it also ensures that the differences between employees and the self-employed fades even more. This could have negative consequences for the fiscal facilities for entrepreneurs on the long term.

Decreasing bureaucracy/ regulations entrepreneurs.

Another theme that the political parties paid attention to is decreasing the bureaucracy and regulation for entrepreneurs. D66, for example, wants to instigate an Ombudsman for entrepreneurs, who focusses specially on bureaucratic burdens. D66 is also of the opinion that automatic granting of licences should take place if the government does not act within the time given. The VVD wants the law to be tested based on all enterprises and not just on the larger SME-businesses. According to the PvdA procedures and costs can be decreased if entrepreneurs can take care of most of their procedural affairs on a digital counter and the CDA argues for the continuation of the program ‘Vermindering Regeldruk’(decreasing the pressure of rules) Where regulation in the case of tax, supervision and special planning is simplified for entrepreneurs.

Fiscal treatment entrepreneurs

Although there are differences between political parties in the case of fiscal treatment of entrepreneurs, it has become apparent that the aim is for more equal treatment, be it between employees and employers, or between self-employed professionals and director majority shareholders. To reduce the differences between self-employed professionals and director majority shareholders, the SME-profit exemption for self-employed professionals has been created. This measure seems to have worked until now. The VVD is of the opinion that the SME-profit exemption should be raised and the SME-rate in corporate tax lowered: in short, that entrepreneurs in respect to employees pay even less tax. The PvdA, however, argues that the differences in fiscal treatment of self-employed professionals and employees should be minimalized.

According to a recently published rapport of the Centraal Plan Bureau (CPB policy Brief 12/02) the self-employed are more flexible than employees therefore have a stronger response to tax incentives. From this point of view fiscal favouring of the self-employed is justifiable. But, the CPB also states that the fiscal measures are not suited to stimulate innovation or create job opportunities. Therefore, the CPB is for abolishing the self-employed deduction in its current form and for raising the SME- profit exemption. This way the difference in fiscal treatment of entrepreneurs and employees becomes smaller, because the self-employed deduction causes entrepreneurs to pay less taxes than employees with the same income. No political party talks about abolishing the self-employed deduction, but both Groenlinks and D66 want to introduce reformations. D66 wants to change the hour standard to the revenue standard. Groenlinks wants to change the hour standard to an income dependent regulation. Although this seems like a good idea, the issue of the self-employed deduction published by the CPB is not resolved and these changes will certainly not make the self-employed deduction easier to manage: a revenue criteria is very hard to check and maintain and an income dependent regulation is more prone to fraud.

For more about the CPB rapport and the fiscal treatment of the self-employed, click HERE.

Conclusion

Based on these election programs we conclude that all political parties more or less have the same ideas about entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurship. There is no clear distinction between right or left winged parties concerning the suggested measures. We concluded that with all political parties a clear vision is lacking regarding entrepreneurship and the modern labour market