Danielle has a good financial situation, but this does not apply to her father. “He is going through a difficult time financially. He is no longer able to support himself and pay his rent.”
So Daniel wanted to help: by donating money. Neat, according to the rules. “But my tax advisor told me that the rules for donating to your father or mother are much stricter than the other way around: if the parents want to donate something to their children. If you want to donate something to your parents, you're actually going to have a lot of barriers.”
Danielle, a researcher and anthropologist, shared her story and started a survey: she received hundreds of responses full of surprise about the rules.
the rules
what about? If you want to donate, you must pay tax above a certain amount. How much this happens depends on who is donating to whom. The rules are contained in a 1956 law that was last revised in 2010.
Parents who donate money to their children are allowed to donate up to €6,633 tax-free. But if the children give money to their parents, the tax counter starts at €2,658.
“Get the surprise”
State Secretary Marnix van Rij (Finance) acknowledges that the rules are outdated and understands the debate about the rules. “The law is still based on the idea that parents can take care of themselves. The legislator did not see a situation in which children donate to their parents as logical. But that is of course not always the case these days.”
A special committee, commissioned by the Council of Ministers, also concluded two years ago that the time had come to comprehensively review the donation rules. “But we haven't had time for that in this government.”
Will the Foreign Minister change anything now? “I would love to, but it is now up to the next cabinet because we are gone.”
Support in the House of Representatives
Political parties from left to right in the House of Representatives believe the rules should be changed quickly. They no longer find the rules interpretable, according to Tour. “Donating to children couldn't be much easier than the other way around. We really need to sort this out,” says SP's Jamie Dick. “We need to look at donations in a new way,” adds Henk Vermeer of the BBB.
D66, ChristenUnie, CDA, VOLT and PvdD also believe that donation rules should be equalized. The VVD also questions the current law and believes it should be examined whether it could be done differently. The Freedom Party did not want to respond.
Donations to children are still more popular
There are no accurate figures on how many children donate to their parents each year. According to authorities, the vast majority of donations are still from parents to children. “This concerns at least 80 percent of donations,” says a ministry spokesman.
Danielle knows for sure that donating to parents happens more often than thought. And you think it will happen more often. “More and more elderly people have recently fallen into the poverty trap. Our country is also getting older. Children are increasingly saying, if they can, they want to help their parents. You want to give your parents a little carefreeness in the past years. This is “A place where the government doesn't hold people back by making convoluted and inexplicable rules.”
