Tax Liability of Directors for VAT: Court Decision and Reduction of Liability

• The court ruled on a case regarding the liability of directors for VAT and payroll tax assessments.
• The directors were correctly held liable due to long-standing problems in the administrative organization that they should have been aware of.
• The VAT assessments were based on an estimate, and the taxpayer was given the opportunity to provide evidence of the correct amounts owed, but failed to do so due to a lack of verifiable records.
• The taxpayer did provide evidence that the estimate was based on incorrect facts and assumptions in some areas, which the tax authority did not refute.
• The amount of the liability was reduced to the amount that the taxpayer claimed should have been estimated.
• The liability was also reduced by the amount of the payroll tax assessments.
• The tax authority was aware of the taxpayer’s inability to pay, and the deficiencies in the VAT administration cannot be used to support a claim of grossly improper management regarding the payroll taxes.
• The appeal was successful.

Source: uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl

Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.

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