The Dutch government has abandoned its attempt to tax paper profits, confirming in the 2027 Tax Plan presented on Budget Day that it will instead draft a capital gains tax due only when assets are sold. Proposals for the redesigned system are expected in spring 2027, Bloomberg reports.
The retreat buries, in practice if not yet formally, the Actual Return in Box 3 Act that the House of Representatives passed in February.
That law would have taxed residents at a flat 36% on the annual increase in value of stocks, bonds, and cryptocurrencies from January 2028, whether or not anything was sold.
Paul Correa, managing partner of Fiduciary Wealth Management, characterized the proposal as a “draconian measure” that very few countries apply because it’s often “very unpopular and more cumbersome and costly to administer for tax authorities.”
How the Bill Died Without a Vote
Resistance hardened almost as soon as the lower house approved the text. Senators sent the tax ministry 36 pages of questions, a petition against the law collected more than 61,000 signatures, and coalition senators from the VVD and CDA made clear they preferred a levy on realized profits.
The Senate debated the bill in plenary on June 30 but did not vote on it. A majority backed a motion postponing the vote until the cabinet produced an amending bill, and on July 7 the chamber noted a further motion declaring it had no objection to outright withdrawal.
State Secretary for Taxation Eelco Eerenberg spent the summer floating repairs, including a cut in the rate from 36% to 35% and a one-year loss carry-back. None of it held the line.
By September 9, the farmers’ party BBB was threatening to force a Senate vote unless Finance Minister Eelco Heinen withdrew the bill entirely.
The amending bill promised for Budget Day never materialized. In its place came the pivot: a system built on realized gains, with legislative proposals due next spring.
What Investors Get in the Meantime
The stopgap regime dates back to December 2021, when the Dutch Supreme Court struck down the previous wealth tax in what became known as the Christmas ruling. For years, the state had taxed savers on returns it assumed they earned, even as near-zero interest rates meant many earned almost nothing; the court held that taxing income a person never actually received violates his property rights.
Until a replacement becomes law, that interim system rolls on. Rather than taxing what investors actually earn, the tax authority still assumes they earned a fixed return: 6.00% on investments in 2026, with lower provisional rates for bank savings and debts, weighted by how much of each a taxpayer holds.
That assumed income, not the assets themselves, is what gets taxed at 36%. On €100,000 in investments, the state presumes a €6,000 gain and takes €2,160 of it, an effective levy of roughly 2.2% of the portfolio per year, whether the portfolio rose 20% or fell.
Each person’s first €59,357 in net assets escapes the calculation entirely (€118,714 for fiscal partners). And since the 2025 counter-evidence law, a concession the ruling forced, anyone whose real return came in below the assumed figure can declare the actual number and pay on that instead. It cuts one way only: investors who beat the assumption still pay tax on the assumption.
The 2027 Tax Plan nudges the arithmetic against investors even as it spares them the mark-to-market regime. Its exemption rises to €60,098, but the assumed return on investments climbs from 6.00% to 6.37%, adding approximately €133 in tax per €100,000 of investments above the threshold.
The replacement bill, which would tax actual returns instead of assumed ones, cannot reach the statute book before 2029, a delay that would reportedly cost an estimated €3 billion (approximately US$3.5 billion) a year in foregone revenue. Reporting by public broadcaster NOS suggests full implementation of a sale-based system may slip as far as 2032, with part of the gap plugged elsewhere in the budget through higher income tax rates in the first two bands.
A European Outlier
The abandoned law would have made the Netherlands unique on the continent. No European country levies a recurring tax on unrealized capital gains; the closest analogues are one-time exit taxes on departing residents, in force in eight of 27 EU member states, and Denmark’s annual mark-to-market treatment of certain fund wrappers.
Even stripped of the unrealized element, the Dutch rate, if it holds, would sit near the top of the continent. At 36%, only Denmark (42%) and Norway (37.8%) charge more on capital gains, against a European average of 16.7% on listed shares; Cyprus, Greece, Malta, and Switzerland charge nothing on long-held shares.
Whether the climbdown keeps mobile wealth at home is another question. Warnings that crypto holders would relocate accompanied the February vote, and the four-year wait for a final regime leaves Dutch investors weighing their options against the shrinking club of countries that still tax wealth annually.
Three things now merit watching: whether the government formally withdraws the pending bill, what rate the spring 2027 proposal carries, and whether the Senate’s realized-gains converts accept the transition timeline.
