🔱 zelion 🔱

The Dutch, my fellow citizens, are going absolutely berserk over a new tax plan. Not just because of what's in it, but also because of the extraordinarily amateurish way it has been put together. The Netherlands has a minority government, meaning governing parties can shop around for parliamentary support to secure a majority. The tax plan has been changed over and over again, and each time it gets a little crazier. While its contents are raising plenty of eyebrows, the process of reaching an agreement is becoming downright laughable. What the Bloomberg snippet doesn't tell you is that the Council of State, the government's most important independent adviser, has strongly argued against it. The proposal also includes taxing unrealized gains on crypto and precious metals, potentially extending to certain pension-related investments, not shown in the Bloomberg snippet. And then there's the Dutch Tax Administration, which has already been at the center of a disastrous benefits fraud scandal. It has repeatedly warned that it simply cannot implement the government's ever-changing plans. So we have a government pushing ahead with a controversial tax plan, its most important adviser raising serious objections, and the tax authority saying it cannot execute it. Dutch politics is making a complete fool of itself. To all non-Dutch readers and followers: what do you make of this? How does it compare with the tax policies and political decision-making in your own country? Examples are very welcome.