COVID support package – an update

If your organisation received COVID support under Dutch government schemes such as the Reimbursement of Fixed Costs (TVL) scheme or the Temporary Emergency Bridging Measure for Sustained Employment (NOW) or if you were granted a special payment holiday, you need to make sure that you meet the upcoming deadlines for the final settlement of the grants and/or for resumption of your tax payment obligations. We would be happy to tell you about all the ins and outs. 

1. Reimbursement of Fixed Costs (TVL) scheme, Q1 and Q2 2021
2. Final settlement of Temporary Emergency Bridging Measure for Sustained Employment (NOW)
3. Changes to special payment holiday as of 1 October 2021

Please do not hesitate to contact your Accon International adviser or send an email to international@acconavm.nl if you need any assistance in this regard.

Re 1. Reimbursement of Fixed Costs (TVL) scheme, Q1 and Q2 2021

If your organisation received COVID support under the Reimbursement of Fixed Costs (TVL) scheme in the first and second quarters of 2021, you need to make sure that you submit a request for final settlement of this grant. The TVL scheme is based on an estimate of your loss of revenue. You are expected to provide final confirmation of your revenue shortly. Not until you have provided this information will the grant be settled. At that point, you will know whether the grant you received was too high and you need to repay some or all of it or whether you can expect to receive an additional amount. The following deadlines apply to the provision of information for the purposes of final settlement:

• Q1: by 11 November 2021 at the latest
• Q2: by 11 January 2022 at the latest

If you require a third-party statement for the final settlement, please reach out to your contact person or an Accon International adviser early, so that there is enough time to make the appropriate arrangements. You can apply for a repayment schedule if the authorities expect you to pay back all or part of the grant. Your accon■avm adviser can help you with your application.

Re 2. Final settlement of Temporary Emergency Bridging Measure for Sustained Employment (NOW)

If your organisation received COVID support under the Temporary Emergency Bridging Measure for Sustained Employment (NOW), you need to make sure that you submit a request for final settlement of this grant. You can file a request for settlement with the Employee Insurance Agency (UWV).

The deadline for filing a request for the period March-April-May 2020 was 31 October 2021. Please contact your Accon International adviser as soon as possible if you missed this deadline. The following deadlines apply to the reference periods for NOW 2 through NOW 6:

The grant conditions may vary from period to period. After UWV has confirmed the final settlement, you will receive the last instalment or you will be expected to repay any amount you were not entitled to. If you do not submit a request for final settlement, you will be required to repay the full amount.

Additional statements

You will be expected to provide a third-party statement if your NOW grant was € 40,000 or higher. Requests for final settlement of grants of € 125,000 or higher must be accompanied by an accountant’s report. You can ask your Accon International adviser to tell you more about the exact conditions. You will be required to submit the relevant supporting documents with your request for final settlement. We recommend that you file your request before the deadline even if you do not have all the required documents at that particular time. We would be happy to help you with submitting your request.

Re 3. Changes to special payment holiday as of 1 October

If your organisation applied for a special COVID-related tax payment holiday in the Netherlands in the period from 12 March 2020 through 30 September 2021, you may still be eligible for the new payment schedules that took effect on 1 October 2021. Ask your adviser what your options are.

Tax assessments – payment deadline

You applied for a COVID-related special payment holiday, by which you were granted a deferral of payments for one or more types of taxes. Your payment holiday expired on 1 October 2021. As a result, all tax returns you file on or after 1 October 2021 will start to be subject to payment deadlines again. If the payment deadline of a tax assessment is on or after 1 October, you are required to meet this deadline. The special tax holiday does not apply to these tax assessments. The payment deadline is always specified on the tax assessment.

Payment schedule for tax debt

You will not be expected to repay the tax debt for which you were granted a special payment holiday right away. In the course of 2021, the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration will send you a proposal for a payment schedule. Their letter will have the following information:

• A statement of your tax debt
• The conditions of the payment schedule
• Your monthly payment under the payment schedule

You will have from 1 October 2022 to 1 October 2027 to repay your tax debt. Based on the schedule, you will owe the tax authorities a fixed amount for 60 months. The deadline for the first instalment is 31 October 2022. You can also choose to start repaying your tax debt earlier. If you repay part of your debt before 1 October 2022, the total amount you will owe under the payment schedule will decrease, as will the fixed monthly amount.

The tax authorities will also give you the option to make additional repayments during the term of the payment schedule. As it stands, we do not know how this will affect your payment schedule.