CORONAVIRUS EFFECTS: INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE

Continuing the theme of coronavirus infection (COVID-19), we continue a series of articles on measures taken to combat this disease in different countries of the world, but rather we are interest-ed in the fight against its economic consequences
The Dutch government has taken the economic consequences of COVID-19 very seriously. Among other things, the authorities took the following measures regarding taxation:

You can apply for an extension of tax payment for 3 months for all your income taxes, corpo-rate tax, payroll tax and VAT at the same time by filling out a special online form (in Dutch);
You can also apply for an extension of payment for a number of other taxes and fees: excise tax, landlord tax, environmental taxes, insurance premium tax, rates and lotteries;
in this country you do not have to pay fines for late payment of taxes;
the usual interest rate on the fee after the due date has been temporarily reduced to almost 0%. This applies to all tax debts;
the obligation of employers in accordance with the new Law on the balance of the labor mar-ket to inform about the employment contracts of permanent workers until April 1, 2020 is ex-tended until July 1, 2020.
the deadline for filing tax returns, which should have been filed before March 31, 2020, has been extended by two months (the new deadline for filing is May 31, 2020);
temporary suspension for two months of the obligation to pay VAT without imposing fines as a measure to increase liquidity for business. This measure applies to individual enterprises.

A number of general economic incentives were also adopted, including:

providing financial assistance to employers in order to pay wages to their employees;
From March 16, 2020 to April 1, 2021, the loan guarantee scheme for small and medium en-terprises will be expanded;
Self-employed professionals will be able to apply for an additional temporary allowance for self-employed professionals to compensate for the loss of income from March 1 in the munic-ipality where they live;
Entrepreneurs who have received a loan from Qredits microcredit organization are not re-quired to repay their loan within 6 months. During this period, interest will be reduced to 2%;
€ 4,000 compensation for entrepreneurs under the affected sectors scheme has been opened in a number of specific sectors that have been affected by measures to combat coronavirus;
government will expand export credit insurance mechanism. Companies will be able to get a short-term warranty with a service life of less than 2 years;
Local media, which see that their advertising revenue is declining, may turn to the govern-ment for support under the new retroactive temporary support scheme for local media from March 15.

In general, we see that the Dutch government has very systematically approached the fight against the economic consequences of coronavirus infection and we think that tax breaks will be very useful to numerous Dutch holdings of Ukrainian groups of companies.