When someone in your employee’s household is sick, your employee may have to be quarantined at home. This depends on the nature and severity of the person’s symptoms.

With regard to home quarantine, there are 2 options:
1. The relevant person has mild complaints, such as a cold or cough:
In this situation, your employee is subject to the basic rules that apply to everyone in the Netherlands. In principle, your employee does not have to be quarantined at home.

2. The other person has severe complaints, such as fever and/or shortness of breath:
In this situation, everyone in the household has to stay at home and your employee has to be quarantined at home.

In the situation where the other person has severe complaints, there are again 2 options:
1. The nature of the work allows your employee to work from home:
In this situation, your employee is entitled to continued payment of wages.
2. The nature of the work does not allow your employee to work from home:
In this situation, your employee may not be able to work, but because this risk is in principle borne by the employer, your employee is still entitled to payment of wages.

Please note: if the employee works from home / is quarantined at home due to complaints of another person in your employee’s household, you do not have to report your employee sick, as your employee is not sick! Please also bear in mind that in this situation, you will have to continue paying wages because it is an employer risk; there will be no refund from any healthcare insurance, again because your employee is not sick.

Finally, the rules regarding home quarantine and continued payment of wages are subject to change; also, these are highly dependent on the circumstances. For this reason, we advise you to contact the Arbodienst (occupational health and safety service) if necessary.

At first, the government indicated that sending a letter would suffice to request deferred payment. In the mean time we were informed that deferred payment can be granted only after receiving an additional assessment. For Interfisc clients, the procedure for granting deferred payment is as follows:

1. Interfisc will process the tax bill for payroll tax as usual.
2. The tax bill is left unpaid (Interfisc does not pay, and if you are a self-payer, you do not pay).
3. The Tax Authorities impose an additional assessment.
4. For each individual company, we file an objection against the additional assessment.

If you have submitted a request to Interfisc to request the Tax Authorities to grant deferred payment, we have left your payroll tax bill unpaid. Most additional tax assessments will be sent directly to our office. However, if you receive an additional assessment, please immediately send a copy to your contact with the Dutch payroll administration. We will complete the process for you.

In the Netherlands the so-called Work-Related Costs Scheme (Werkkostenregeling, WKR) contains rules about which work-related costs can and cannot be reimbursed tax-free. Due to the corona crisis, the Secretary of State for Finance has raised the tax-free budget on the wage tax from 1.7% to:

1. 3% over the first amount in taxable wages until Euro 400,000
2. 1.18% over the amount in taxable wages exceeding Euro 400,000 (this was 1.2% in 2020)
   
   

You can use this additional tax-free margin to make an untaxed payment to your employees.

Besides the Dutch Government is investigating if they can come up with a new set of rules which enables employers to give their employees other tax free allowances which relate to working from home. At this stage there is no such thing as an untaxed “working from home allowance” in the Netherlands. This means that such an allowance will either be used from the tax-free budget mentioned above, or be taxed on the payslip. Unless there is a so-called “specific exemption” that allows tax free reimbursement. At this stage such an exemption applies to the actual costs of internet at home, which can therefore be reimbursed taxfree, without having effect on the tax free budget as en employer.

The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany have concluded an agreement that days that would normally be taxed in the country where you work, can continue to be taxed in that country. The fact that the employee is unable to travel to the work country and works in the country of residence does not change this. This is exclusively the case if this is due to the corona situation. In brief, the salary split can continue to be arranged as it was pre-Covid-19. However, it is important to keep a record in your calendar on which days you worked or should work in the relevant country, just like before the corona crisis.

The Netherlands did not make any specific arrangements with any other countries and no negotiations are ongoing.

A fixed expense allowance may normally be continued for up to 6 weeks. A variable expense allowance only if it actually reflects incurred expenses and there is evidence, as well as written regulations in which the outcome of a prior examination of expenses is recorded. In June 2020, the Dutch Ministry of Finance decided that, during the corona crisis, both the untaxed travel allowance and the fixed expense allowance could still be paid untaxed. Even if these expenses were no longer (fully) incurred as a result of working from home. For the fixed expense allowance it was required that the fiscal rules in the Netherlands, that were applicable before the corona crisis, were met. In other situations expense allowances could only be paid tax-free if the employer brings the allowance under the Work Expenses Regulation (WKR) and also pays the tax.

Wat changes in 2021/2022?
Until January 1, 2022, the existing fixed travel allowances can still be paid out untaxed by the employer, subject to the condition that this concerns allowances that were already granted by the employer before March 13, 2020. This is one of the measures that has been extended by the government due to the corona crisis.

Fixed expenses / daily allowances may no longer be paid out untaxed, as if there were no corona crisis.
In case nothing has changed for an employee from when the original fixed expense allowance was determined (business as usual), the fixed expenses / daily allowances can still be paid untaxed.
In case the employee’s work hás changed from when the original fixed expense allowance was determined, the tax inspection will require another reassessment of expenses – for a period of 3 months, including laying down the results of the investigation in a regulation – in order to see if the fixed tax free allowance needs adjustment. During this reassessment, the payment of the fixed tax free allowance should be suspended.

It is important that you inform your payroll team about how they need to proceed, when it comes to a possible fixed expense / daily allowance. In case Interfisc handles your payroll administration and we hear nothing from you about this topic, we will continue everything as it is now. Please note that, in the event of a payroll audit, the tax inspection may assume that you have opted to charge the full allowance to your tax free budget in the Work Related Expense Scheme (WKR). If this WKR budget is exceeded, the employer must pay an 80% final levy (employer tax), which cannot be recovered from an employee.

The advice for employers is to let employees work at home as much as possible. Especially when your employees suffer from mild health problems (sneezing, sore throat, runny nose, light cough, fever) or have a fragile health.

You should consider if working at home is possible for your employees. Besides you are requested to spread the working times of your employees as much as possible.

No, it is forbidden by the privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), to temperature people and thus process their health data. Unless a large number of conditions are met. This is often resolved by asking permission. But this is not possible in an employment relationship, because there is no equivalence there. An employee may feel pressured to give permission.

More information: autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/nl/nieuws/ap-arieven-meten-mag-niet-zomaar

Working parents should be allowed some time to organize childcare. This is called “emergency leave”; the employer continues to pay 100% of wages.

The leave is of short duration, to be determined in an equitable fashion. If the children are sick, employees are usually entitled to short-term care leave (see the answer to the question “When is my employee entitled to short-term care leave”) in which case the emergency leave ends after one day.

This leave applies where the employee has to provide necessary care in the event of
illness of his/her partner, a child or foster child living in the household, or a blood relative in the first or second degree. As from 1 July 2015, short-term care leave is also possible for a person with whom the employee has a social relationship such as a good friend, provided that the care to be provided directly ensues from that relationship and has to be provided by the employee.

Up to twice the number of days worked per week (10 days for a full-time contract) may be taken in a 12-month period and this period shall come into force on the first day on which the leave is in effect. These days cannot be carried forward. The employee must inform the employer of the reason for the leave before or afterwards.
The employer may refuse to grant the leave if there are substantial operational and
employment interests involved. The employee does not necessarily have to take the care
leave consecutively.

The employer continues to pay at least 70% of the wages, during the leave (as a minimum the minimum wage as set by the law and as a maximum 70% of the maximum daily pay).

If the child, partner or a blood relative in the first or second degree is sick at home, while your employee is the only one being able to provide care, he or she may be entitled to short-term care leave (see the answer to the question “When is my employee entitled to short-term care leave”).

Does the employee need more time, he or she may be entitled to prolonged care leave. Each year, an employee may take a maximum of 6 times the weekly work duration in
hours’ leave (6 weeks) In principle the employee on prolonged care leave can work parttime (50%) for a consecutive period of 12 weeks, so that part of the income is retained. 

In consultation with the employer this leave can be distributed differently: e.g., 6
consecutive weeks’ full-time leave or spreading the leave out over a period of 18 weeks
max. For part-timers leave will be pro rata: for example, if an employee works 20 hours
per week, he or she can take 12 week’s leave at 10 hours a week.

If it concerns staff that is unable to attend work because of obligatory quarantine, travel restrictions or other Corona blockades, chances are you have to continue to pay salary.

However, it depends on the specific circumstances and local labour law that differs in each country.

The current situation regarding the Corona virus and the applicable measures can lead to the lack of suitable work at this moment. Check if there are other activities within your organization that could be done by your employee, on a temporary basis.

If it is now impossible to continue reintegration, we urgently advise you to conform this in writing, in accordance with your employee, and to include it in the employee’s reintegration file. This will allow you to explain and show the obstruction and/or delay in the reintegration process.

The tax addition continues to apply, as long as the employee keeps the company car available (even when it is parked in a parking garage). It is only possible to stop the addition for a longer and structural period of time, provided that it is agreed in writing that the car is temporarily no longer available to the employee (in which case it would be best to actually park the car on the employer’s property and to hand over his car keys and the registration papers).

It is not clear how long the period of time must be during which the car is given back to the employer, but previous decisions from the Tax Authorities showed that a 3-week holiday period was not enough for being structural. It is not yet clear how the current Corona crisis will be considered, we have asked this question to the tax authorities. As soon as there is an answer, we will inform our customers about this and you’ll read it here.

Entrepreneurs who experience problems because of the Coronavirus can apply for payment extension with the Tax Administration. This is open for all returns: income tax, corporate tax, turnover tax (VAT/BTW) and payroll/wage taxs. Moreover fines for late payment will not have to be paid now. More information is available on the website of the Tax Administration:

https://business.gov.nl/running-your-business/business-taxes/filing-your-tax-returns/applying-for-a-tax-filing-extension/