Akademik

   During the period of the Republic, many kinds of direct and indirect taxes were levied, for example, on consumption and lux ury articles and on property transfers. The provinceswere entitled to levy their taxes in view of their respective shares (quoten) in the re quired annual taxation of the Generaliteit. To collect the taxes, the authorities often resorted to a system of leasing to private persons. It was only after the new constitution in 1798, during the Batavian Republic, that attempts at unifying the taxation system were made. During the reign of King Louis Napoleon, a national system of tax collection based on modern principles was introduced in 1809. In the present national taxation system, direct taxes are levied on income, wages, and properties. Indirect taxes, such as value-added tax (VAT) and excises on goods, are collected from businesses, which then pass them on to the consumers and end users of products and services. Contributions and retributions are a third kind of tax, such as road taxes or fees. Another distinction among taxes is between progressive and proportional rates. In this respect, social policy and conceptions of an equitable distribution of income play their roles. Recently there has been a tendency for taxes to shift from income tax to VAT, as a consequence of the need to adjust to European standards, because of membership in the European Union (EU). Tax policy has to cope with the problem of the growing and heavy burden of national as well as local and regional taxes. Politicians realized also that taxes must be capped to avoid stifling hard work and in vestment. Dutch tax rates on income include several brackets. In 2001, a new tax system was introduced for private persons, with three so-called boxes. The first box includes taxable income and houses (with several brackets), the second concerns income from profits (at a tax rate of 25 percent), and the third, income from savings and in vestments (tax rate: 30 percent from 4 percent return).