# Millionaires' tax deal puts Dutch coalition under strain

> Coalition partners D66 and CDA backed an opposition-backed amendment to the tax plan that shifts €1bn from labour to wealth, and the VVD says a "fundamental reset" of the coalition is needed if its partners back the millionaires' tax.

Politics · published 2026-11-12 14:37 · https://nlnow.nl/a/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.

## Background

- **Box 3**: The part of Dutch income tax that taxes savings and investments. Tax is charged on an assumed return rather than the actual return; after the Supreme Court ruled from 2021 that this can breach property rights, the system has to be reformed.
- **Belastingplan**: The Belastingplan is the Dutch government's annual tax bill, which sets out the changes to taxes and levies for the coming year and is presented to parliament each year on Prinsjesdag. It must be approved by both the House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer) and the Senate (Eerste Kamer). Amendments to it can change how the tax burden is spread across income, labour and wealth before the bill is passed.
- **box 2**: Box 2 is one of the three income categories in Dutch income tax, covering income from a substantial interest in a company, such as dividends and profits from selling shares held by business owners and major shareholders. It is taxed separately from box 1 (work and owner-occupied housing) and box 3 (savings and investments). Changes to the box 2 rate therefore mainly affect entrepreneurs and shareholders.

From NLnow, news from the Netherlands in English. How stories are made: https://nlnow.nl/about/