Millionaires' tax deal puts Dutch coalition under strain

D66 and CDA, two of the three coalition parties, struck a compromise on Wednesday 11 November with opposition parties PRO and Volt on an amendment to the Belastingplan (tax plan). It shifts €1bn in burdens from labour to wealth. The third coalition party, the VVD, says its partners took it by surprise.

The amendment introduces a millionaires' tax. PRO leader Jesse Klaver told parliament on Thursday that the €1bn raised from wealth goes to working people. It also lowers the basic rate in box 3 by 0.5%, Klaver said. The CDA wanted that cut; PRO did not.

The compromise drops a box 2 measure, a higher rate for business owners, from the amendment PRO and Volt filed a week earlier. CDA, D66 and the opposition ChristenUnie found it went too far. The VVD had also called it unacceptable, Klaver said.

After internal deliberation on Wednesday evening, VVD leader Dilan Yeşilgöz said a "fundamental reset" of the coalition's cooperation is needed if her partners back the millionaires' tax. She also said it had never happened in the Netherlands that a party was so ambushed by its coalition partners.

D66 parliamentary leader Jan Paternotte denied that the VVD was caught off guard and said D66 had been "very transparent". JA21 leader Joost Eerdmans said the VVD was told only minutes before the deal. "If what Mr Eerdmans said were true, he would be right. But it is not," Paternotte replied.

Paternotte agreed with Yeşilgöz that the coalition parties must make new agreements on how they work together. "I think there is every reason for that, based on what we have seen lately," he said, adding that debate on the budget and tax plan "really did not always go smoothly". He said that seeking a majority for the tax plan on the right, with JA21, BBB and SGP, had become complicated because those parties had tied it to the abortion law and the nitrogen approach.

Klaver called the deal a compromise in which PRO also gave ground. He said wrecking a tax plan or causing a cabinet crisis over taxing millionaires could not be explained to voters, and he hoped for a majority for the plan by the end of Thursday.