On Tuesday, September 19, 2023 (Budget Day), the outgoing Dutch Minister of Finance revealed the Tax Plan 2024 in which several tax measures were announced. You will find our publication Tax Plan 2024 Special attached, in which we outlined the most important measures from an international perspective. Please note that the proposals are subject to discussion and approval by the Dutch Parliament.
The District Court of Amsterdam has ruled in three judgments that agreed rent increase clauses in housing are unfair. As a result, the clauses are annulled and past rent increases are reversed. Also, the rent cannot be increased (again) for the remainder of the term of the lease. This has far-reaching consequences for current leases and the marketability of housing complexes. Reason why it is essential for landlords to carefully formulate (new) rent increase clauses.
On 1 September 2023, the EU Mobility Directive will be implemented by means of the adopted legislative proposal. The EU Mobility Directive creates one European framework for cross-border legal mergers, divisions and conversions ("cross-border operation"). Under current law, such cross-border operations are possible, but only a cross-border legal merger is laid down in Book 2 of the Dutch Civil Code. Cross-border divisions and conversions derive their legal force from European legislation and case law.
In the current environment, EU Member States often levy withholding tax on dividends and interest paid. Subsequently, this withholding tax paid may be eligible for a refund based on tax treaties. The procedures for such refunds can be problematic in practice and differ significantly per Member State. The European Commission has now proposed new rules in order to streamline and simplify withholding tax procedures in the EU. In addition, these rules aim to prohibit the abuse of refund procedures. The current proposal only applies to publicly traded shares and, where applicable, interest from publicly traded bond.
In part 2 of this blog series, we delve into the scope of license agreements. In particular: Are there geographical boundaries to licenses and can licenses be limited to specific acts of use, sectors, and applications?
In part 1 of this blog series, we will describe the nature of a license agreement: what does a license agreement entail and what rights can be licensed?
Will you be sending your employees to work abroad on a project or for a fixed number of days a week? Alternatively, are you an employee yourself and do you find yourself in such a situation? In either case you may always want to check whether this will give rise to tax and/or social security obligations for the relevant employee in the country in which they will be working. Below you can read about the situations which should set alarm bells ringing.
The mere branding of luxury goods does not suffice to protect the luxurious image of goods. Registration, enforcement and contracts are key...
In our blog of 23 December 2023, we discussed the draft legislative proposal Minimum Tax Law 2024 (“Wet minimumbelasting 2024”). We hereby inform you that the legislative proposal is no longer in draft and has been sent to the Dutch House of Representatives on 31 May 2023. Once accepted, it will be reviewed in the Dutch Senate before entering into force.
A data breach happens to the best of us. Every company or organisation can face it sooner or later. In European countries, tens of thousands of data breaches have been reported to local authorities. In the Netherlands, for example, around 25,000 reports were made. When a data leak occurs, an organisation faces a lot of issues in a short period of time. Fast and adequate action is crucial in such incidents. In this article, we provide a practical step-by-step action plan of what to do in the event of a (potential) data breach, particularly in light of the obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Non fungible tokens (NFT’s) are increasingly popular among artists who trade their art digitally. In this context, the use of well-known brands in NFT’s, as part of digital artworks, is also taking off and raised the question on how trademark law might apply to the tokens. In a recent lawsuit at the federal court of New York over the use of Hermès bags in NFT’s, the New York jury ruled on this topic.
On Monday 12 December 2022 the EU Member States reached an agreement about the EU wide implementation of the rules aimed at introducing a global minimum tax of 15% on profits of multinational enterprises. The Committee of Permanent Representatives approved the draft EU Directive prepared for this purpose and submitted it with the Council to be formally adopted in a further written procedure. The Directive provides for the European implementation of the initiative agreed on by the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting in October 2021 as part of its “Two Pillar Solution to Address the Tax Challenges Arising From the Digitalisation of the Economy”. Member States are required to implement the Directive into their national law by 31 December 2023 at the latest. The Netherlands was anticipating this and had already shared a draft Bill introducing an entirely new law, the Minimum Tax Law 2024 (“Wet minimumbelasting 2024”) for input from the general public in an online consultation. This blog summarizes key aspects of the Dutch implementation proposal and how multinationals should prepare.
