The Netherlands has long been a sanctuary for the international capitalist, but what is it now? Those who wanted to avoid tax sent a letterbox here with regulations that were typically Dutch, such as a low tax on funneled interest and royalties. Money was funneled through Dutch mailboxes with only one goal: to pay less tax for the elderly. Hence, U2 and the Rolling Stones highlighted in the Netherlands.

This role as a light-hearted place of business has long been a source of pride for certain (mainly right-wing) political parties. It is insured for jobs on the Amsterdam Zuidas and for tax revenues. Nice is not it? As a trading country, the Netherlands had now signed many treaties with others. That’s what all those companies came up with, it was the fruit of hard work.

But the vote on this role. The tax tricks of the rich, the permissions and the other through the leaking of leaks of lists of tax avoiders like the Panama Papers. The Netherlands was a cynical outsider and received more international criticism. The current cabinet intervened: for example, interest and royalties funneled to tax havens have been taxed since this year. Follow the dividend. What are we now?

Different, but not different enough. The Netherlands is not attractive for letterbox companies, closed this week the Conduit Companies Committee headed by top civil servant Bernard ter Haar. The committee is nuanced: the cabinet has really done something about it and there is a chance that the effects have yet to become visible. But what has been consciously and promoted for years, has not just been dismantled.

The committee does not see any basis that the transfer “has ended up on a structure downward path.” In 2019, the Netherlands had 12,000 conduit companies with a balance sheet total of EUR 4,500 billion. That’s 5.5 times our economy. That doesn’t just dry up when taxes change.

According to the committee, a new cabinet can do more against this international shift in money, which also makes better use. By advocating strict rules internationally, and by stricter supervision themselves and by demanding more transparency from letterbox companies.

But we’re not there yet. Letterbox companies are not only here for the previously ordinary taxes. They are also there because of the protection that the Netherlands offers to investors. The Netherlands has concluded many investment treaties with companies and countries can sue. For example, because a country wants to close coal-fired power stations because of the climate and the owner of a power station is foreign. More than 10 percent of simple investment receivables go through the Netherlands, especially through letterbox companies. Something is wrong there, writes committee member Francis Weyzig on the website of the Central Planning Bureau. Because this protection is intended for real Dutch investments, not for foreign companies that only have a minimal presence here.”

For a new cabinet it is clear: stop making the slimds, the companies, the companies, and even the ones that stop here to sue other countries. The Netherlands should not want to be a pivot in the cross-border box of tricks.

Marike Stellinga is an economics and political reporter. She writes about politics and economics here every week.