The Tax Change Verdict Is In....

... and it is not good news 😞

We waited anxiously last Tuesday until around 3:15pm to hear the verdict of the proposed tax changes. We were hopeful that the government would come around and agree to grandfather us into their changes to the 30% ruling (some background from my first post here). But they did not and as things stand, we will lose our benefit at the end of July this coming year. Really disappointed, though not really surprised. Over the summer, the tax changes were debated and it seemed clear then that they were not backing down on their plan to screw a lot of us over. Many friends felt more certain that they would not go through with their plans and were quite shocked last week. But it ain't over til the tall Dutch man sings. The changes have to pass through both houses of government, which will take until mid December. We hear that there is some hope that they could add in the grandfather clause, as they did back in 2012. The United Expats of the Netherlands group is also going full steam ahead looking into the legality of this change. At the time of blogging, 41,000 euro (of an 18,000 euro goal) has been raised to pay a law firm to write a legal opinion on the matter. And we still don't know if or how Pete's school would help families like ours if the law takes effect and there is no legal case. So it boils down to more waiting, which drives me crazy. Simple life decisions are that much harder when our future is uncertain. We still plan to stay at least one more year to see what it is like living here without the tax benefit. Sink or swim. As unfair as all of this is, we are willing to shell out more taxes because we see what such a system does for quality of life. What I'm most upset about is the kid's tuition at ISA being taxed prematurely and our foreign assets being taxed, which thankfully for us are not too great.

We talked to so many people this summer about all of this and I wanted to share an update. Thank you for all of your support! Seems it will be a few months still until the final verdict is in. I will continue to keep you posted! And in the meantime, VOTE!, because we may be coming back sooner than we'd hoped.