Engagement without a third party

For some years now there has been uncertainty about engaging interim staff and how that relates to the question of false self-employment. Bringing in interim staff regularly raises questions about the working relationship between schools or companies and the self-employed people they hire. The DBA Act (Deregulering Beoordeling Arbeidsrelaties, the Dutch law on the assessment of employment relationships) of 2016 was meant to curb false self-employment. The DBA Act is what we are dealing with at present. To date it has barely been enforced. The intention is to lift the enforcement moratorium on 1 January 2025.
From that point the tax authority will again be able to enforce in all cases, retroactively to the date the moratorium is lifted. At the moment it can only do so where there is bad faith or where it has issued a specific instruction. Which criteria the tax authority will enforce against is not yet clear. Case law will play a part in this too, and it stresses that what actually happens in practice outweighs the wording of the contract. Various factors may matter, such as the nature and duration of the work, the way it is directed, and the degree of independence.

One of the requirements the DBA Act sets is that the client and the interim worker record their collaboration in a model agreement approved by the tax authority. The tax authority will check whether the work is genuinely being carried out in line with the provisions of that agreement. Franzen Consultancy always works with the most recent model agreements.

In the second week of June there will be another information afternoon on enforcement of the DBA Act.