On February 18, 2016 we reported that the Dutch media reported that the Members of the Dutch Parliament supposedly would get confidential access to the (Dutch) IKEA ruling(s). The media reports at that time supposedly were based on statements made by Jess Klaver (the leader of the Parliamentary fraction of Groen Links (the Greens)).

On March 2, 2016 a letter of the Dutch State Secretary for Finance was published on the website of the Dutch Ministry of Finance in which the State Secretary states that he is not intending to give the Members of the Dutch Parliament confidential access to the IKEA-ruling(s).

In his letter the State Secretary refers to a letter of his from February 2, 2015. In that latter letter the State Secretary discussed the weigh between the confidentiality as laid down in article 67 of the AWR and the right of the Dutch Parliament to be provided with information as laid down in article 60 of the Grondwet (the Dutch constitution). In that letter the State Secretary stated that in principal he was not able to provide information regarding specific taxpayers in order to avoid doing damage to trust in the Dutch tax authorities and the Dutch Government as a whole. The Dutch State Secretary states that he agrees on the necessity of enabling the Parliament to monitor the legal implementation by the Cabinet. In his letter of February 2, 2015 the State Secretary stated that said judgement in principal should not take place based on individual cases, but by explaining the policy as being carried out by the experts of the Dutch tax authorities. According to the State Secretary that guarantees a high quality transfer of information to the Parliament without breaching the confidentiality.

According to the Secretary of State a confidential technical briefing regarding any advance rulings the Dutch tax authorities possibly granted to IKEA in specific would go against the weighing between the confidentiality and the transfer of information to the Parliament as described above. The State Secretary states that he furthermore wants to point out that the case of IKEA is not comparable to that of Starbucks. In the case of Starbucks the State Secretary made an exception to the rule by granting the Members of Parliament confidential access to the advance ruling(s) granted to Starbucks. According to the State Secretary he made this exception because in the case of Starbucks official information was publicly available by the publication of a decision of the European Commission. According to the State Secretary this cannot be compared to the media reports on IKEA. In IKEA’s case there is no such quantity of official information available regarding advance rulings that were possibly granted to a specific taxpayer that sticking to the described principal of not providing information regarding specific taxpayers proportionate to the right of the Parliament to receive information.

Therefore the State Secretary comes to the conclusion that he is not going to organize a confidential meeting during which the Members of the Dutch Parliament will be informed on a confidential basis with respect to the rulings that possibly were granted to IKEA.

Click here to be forwarded to the letter of the Dutch State Secretary for Finance from March 2, 2016 as published on the website of the Dutch Ministry of Finance, which will open in a new window.

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