Cabinet proposes new law on self-employed to be postponed

The VAR statement for freelancers and the self-employed will not be going into effect until January 1, 2016, announced Eric Wiebes, State Secretary of Finance this Monday. The new scheme where the VAR (Declaration of the Employment Relationship) is replaced by model agreements in each sector will be postponed.

'The preparation goes on, but we are not there yet,' wrote Wiebes to the Senate. The Senate would be discussing the implementation of the plan by late October, but now it's off. Wiebes is now aiming to replace the VAR by April 1, 2016.
Freelancers have to work with a VAR, as required by the tax authorities. The government wants that because people can work as freelancers on paper, but are actually employed in practice. This is difficult to control for the tax authorities, and if it leads to problems, the financial consequences are always the self-employed.

Model Agreements

In the new structure, the tax authorities will be working with model agreements by sector that freelancers and companies can use. Companies can get certainty in advance as to whether the tax authorities accept that there is no employment. If there is, then contributions must be paid.

D66 senator Rinnooy Kan considered it a good thing that Wiebes has considered postponing the proposal. "There are both freelancers as mediators and clients to consider, and there is great uncertainty and concern about the impact of this law," he says. "It is now up to the State Secretary and the Inland Revenue, together with all parties involved, to do their homework as the confidence in the law recovers."
Source: NU.nl