THAT time of year

Last week one of Justin’s work colleagues said in passing, ‘you do know that tax returns are due on the first of April hey?’ ‘Uhm, no.’

Oh yay,  tax returns, my favourite time of year. NOT.

Much of last week was spent establishing what we have to do for tax this year. So we thought first place to look for help: the trusty internet! However, there is only about a quarter of the Dutch information translated into English on the Dutch tax website. The only forms I could find were for people who had lived in the Netherlands but are now living elsewhere. Apparently if you speak English you cannot actually be living IN the Netherlands.

Second option: phone the Dutch tax service (belastingdienst) helpline number. However, when you phone no one will actually talk to you as it is illegal for you to speak English to them or for them to speak to you in English. The reasoning being that what they say is legally binding and if something is lost in translation then there is a bit of a problem.

Third and final option: We were finally put through to the English version of the helpline where you can actually get help in English. What an exercise!

So apparently even though we live here and pay tax like normal Dutch people we don’t do tax returns like a normal Dutch person. We have to order and fill-in an M-form which will be used calculate how much tax we have paid over the last year and if we should get anything back. It sounded like a first-time form for foreigners to get all our info and then next year we can do ‘normal’ tax online. And then we heard that we always have to do an M-form (as opposed to an online return) and we have to do one when we leave the country again. But then we were told that no, we don’t actually have to do a tax return unless we are requested by the tax office but we can choose to do one. It’s all a bit confusing and we get a different story from every person we speak to at the helpline. Hopefully it will become clearer as we go along.

As for the M-form, I have heard it is long and quite a beast to fill out, is only available in Dutch as is the instruction manual for filling it in, and cannot be done online! Fun times ahead. We are still waiting for the forms to arrive (apparently it takes 8 weeks but I suspect it will be shorter than that) but we will apparently have until well after the first of April to fill them in. But we have had many offers of help to fill in the beastly forms from Justin's and my colleagues. Thanks guys! We will probably take you up on the offer! lol. More on this subject to follow in subsequent blogs I am sure.

So. Think again before you complain about how easy SARS has made it to do your tax return online!!

In other news Spring weather is finally here!! =) Over the last week snow-drops, daffodils and other bulbs have been sprouting forth and starting to bloom. No tulips in the fields yet but by the end of the month they should be starting. You can however get early hothouse tulips at the market. The days are also much longer now, so nice! And are slowly becoming more sunny. We had a really beautiful warm (~15ºC, lol) day yesterday and today. We took the opportunity of a sunny afternoon and had the first long cycle of the year =) We followed the canal that runs behind the house and back for about an hour. Was so nice to be outside in the fresh air again!

Well done to everyone who rode in the Argus yesterday! Heard it was extremely hot and that there were many crashes.

Have a good week!

x 


PS: Thanks for 7400 + blog views! =)