According to the internal correspondence of the staff of the House of Representatives, which is in the hands of the BNR, ninety (former) MPs this year have missed the deadline to report any additional earnings to the Tax and Customs Administration. According to the clerk of the House of Representatives, forty later did so, meaning that currently fifty MPs are still in default.
“Strangely High Numbers”
“Unusually high numbers,” says integrity professor Rob van Eijbergen. «Especially if you consider what has already been said and written about this. One would expect MPs to play by the rules.”
For the MPs involved, forgoing additional revenue sometimes has major financial consequences. Deputies who earn more than 14% of their salary (about 17,000 euros) are deducted from the money they receive for their work in parliament (the law speaks of ‘compensation’). This discount can go up to 35% of salary: more than 40,000 euros per year.
MPs can also choose not to file a statement and get a maximum cut in their salary. Three of the forty MPs who submitted their information too late this year have had their salaries cut. According to a Second Chamber staff spokesman, it sometimes takes years for the Tax and Customs Administration to determine a definitive reduction.
BNR obtained this information by invoking the Open Government Act (Woo). Released internal email traffic shows that House of Representatives HR staff are concerned about inadequate accountability of MPs. “Given Woo, I’d like a definitive answer,” wrote an HR employee, whose name was omitted from the file. “It’s tax money that ‘people’ can fall on.”
Problems with filing additional income tax for years
Furthermore, many MPs have not submitted any statements on previous years. In 2020, for example, fifteen (former) MPs have still not declared any additional income. At least one MP has yet to submit anything on 2018. The data from the released correspondence does not extend further. The legal obligation to declare additional income to the tax authorities has existed since 1990.
Constitutional law professor Paul Bovend’Eert says he is surprised that more is not being done with this information. “Anyone can make a complaint to the Integrity Investigation Board. It is important that greater emphasis is placed on the registration of additional income”.
The former deputy who must compensate is ‘untraceable’
From internal correspondence it also emerges that the personnel office of the Chamber has a lot to do to administer the salary cuts, especially of former MPs. “We are faced with the fact that we cannot trace the deceased MPs,” the official wrote. In at least one case it is a former deputy with whom the “surplus of the remuneration received” must be reconciled.
MPs must report their additional income to both the Chamber Clerk and the tax and customs administration. The registry then publishes those notifications in the public records. MPs have been known to violate these rules. For example, party president Thierry Baudet (FvD) failed to declare income from a BV, for which he was suspended for a week in October. In 2020, Zembla already released a list of 33 MPs who erred in giving up additional positions.
Three party leaders in violation
The House of Representatives keeps secret the names of MPs who have not provided information or have provided it too late. The released documents said three incumbent party leaders were among the culprits.
According to the clerk of parliament, MPs would be “disproportionately disadvantaged” by public disclosure, a legal term that offers protection against the Open Government Act. However, Woo’s lawyer Roger Vleugels calls this argument hopeless. “Notification is mandatory and the register of additional income is public,” says Vleugels. It is true that MPs are disadvantaged by their non-publication, but “this is not disproportionate”.
The demands placed on parliamentarians are also high. The tax filing deadline (April 1) is well before most tax returns are filed. Additional tax return forms are not provided until February. According to a spokesman for the House of Representatives, there may therefore also be “good reasons” for a deputy to provide information too late, “but this is between the Tax and Customs Administration and the deputy”.