The Semi-Legal Alien Adventure

Yesterday I tweeted about a secret mission to Eindhoven. Today I shall revel why it was so secret: for 2 days I was an illegal immigrant. (Gasp)

Despite carrying on a dubious family tradition, this was not nearly as interesting as that sounds. I had to re-apply for my residency card renewal in June after my first application went astray. Apparently I was suppose to mail it to Zwolle, not Eindhoven.  When I received notice that my application had been received (and would be processed after I paid the 288 euro fee), my old card only have about a week to go.  That wasn’t so bad. It was the knowledge that they had 6 months to decide weather to approve me or not that was the problem.

A few weeks with a lapsed card may not have been so bad (it would have stressed me out, but it’s not like I do anything to draw attention to myself), but 6 months would have restricted my ability to do anything that requires ID, travel outside the Netherlands, and would have resulted in awkward questions if someone official needed my ID. While being deported would certainly make an interesting end to this blog, I’m not willing to go that far for you all.

Fortunately there is an easy fix to tide me over. I got an appointment with the IND and they issued me a temporary residency sticker for my passport good for another 6 months. This sticker is basically the same one I had to obtain when we first moved to the Netherlands and it states that I can live and work here under the same conditions that we have been until my official renewal application has been approved.

It is not, however a travel visa, and if I want to go abroad and come back into the Netherlands I’ll have to obtain one for 40 euros. Since we have no travel plans at this time, that should be no problem. The gentleman I spoke with at the IND said that he guesstimated my application would be approved in 2 months, so I’ll just have to hold out until then.

Tips to Avoid Being a Semi-Legal Alien

1. Send your renewals to the Zwolle office.
2. Make a photocopy of your application before you mail it. Seriously, I forgot to do this and it slowed the re-applying process way, way down.
3. Send your application on time. It was recommended to me to mail it at least 3 months in advance, but I think I’ll shoot for 4 next time since I seem to be accident prone.
4. If you’re sure you’ll have a period during which your residency card has expired, ask for a sticker like the one I got. You’ll have to keep pressing for it, but it’s worth having for piece of mind.

Image (cc) nathanborror via Flickr. CC-Attribution License

Yeah, yeah, yeah…The Tax Man….

For some reason a visit from a tax specialist had the tune of Taxman by the Beatles running through my head all morning. It’s really too bad I couldn’t remember all the words.

I have to say that Dutch income tax forms are incredibly intimidating, which is why we hired Partners in Tax to run the paperwork for us this year. Each person who needs to pay taxes gets a thick blue envelope containing 4 thick booklets; two of forms and two of instructions, although with strict instructions to submit quickly.  Technically taxes were due at the end of April, but the Dutch tax office is apparently much more lenient that the U.S. IRS. We didn’t receive any forms in time, so our tax guy ordered them for us and the tax office granted us an automatic extension. Or maybe they don’t care. I’m not sure but the process just feels more casual.

Once the forms came in, the tax guy came to our place to fill them out so we were on hand to answer questions as he went through them. He made it look easy. Since I do the taxes in the family, I’m not too surprised; U.S. taxes at our stage aren’t generally too bad. Of course he is also a professional, I didn’t work in 2009, and we don’t own a house. And he can read Dutch. I’d consider doing them myself next year, but now that I have the business I think they might just be beyond my ability.

The one surprise what that there is electronic filing available in the Netherlands, but people like us couldn’t use it this year. Apparently you need to either 1) have lived in the country for the entire year, or 2) have lived outside the country for the entire year. If you straddled the year then you’re stuck with print filing. Hopefully I won’t have to deal with that scary-looking blue envelope in the mail again any time soon.

My IAmExpat Article is Live

I’m pleased to announce that my article entitled “Starting a Business in the Netherlands” is now live at I Am Expat, an excellent expat resource for people who have moved or plan to move to the Netherlands. Built on my experience setting up an Eenmanzaak, the article breaks down the registration process and what you can expect into several, easy to understand, steps.

• Who Needs a Business?
• Business Structures
• ZZP or Freelance?
• Register with the Trade Register
• Registering with the Belastingdienst
• Setting up your Business Administration
• The Extra Stuff

Comments and questions are always welcome. Since writing this article I’ve learned even more about this crazy process.

If you are interested in having me write similar articles for your or your business, please contact me for a quote.

Extended Stay: Renewing my Spouse Residency Permit

Last year when we applied for residency permits, Dan was issued a 3 year stay. I only received 1 year. Such is the challenge of the accompanying spouse. I suppose the government assumes anything could happen in that year which might result in me leaving alone, but fortunately none of those things have come to pass and so I’ve embarked upon the process of renewing my residency permit.

According to the documentation I received from the IND, I am obliged to extend my residency before the current time runs out. To do this they recommend a three month lead time. I’ve already mussed that one up, but fortunately the University’s HR department is helping us through the process so that should speed things up. At least I’m not trying to do this in August. That would be awful.

If you can lean on the HR department of your spouse’s employer, than here are the things I’m told you need to provide:

• Original GBA registration not older than 6 months. (Mine cost 11,10 euros at the Gemeente.)
• A copy of your health insurance
• A copy of your passport (I still have one from last year so we’re using it again.)
• A copy of your permit (both sides)
• A copy of your spouse’s work contract
• A copy of your spouse’s salary slips. We were asked for the previous 3 months.
• A Dutch passport photo. (I had leftovers from the driver’s license process that I never finished.)

The HR department at the University has asked my husband to bring all this in for a meeting and they will process the paperwork. I presume I will then need to make one or two trips up to the IND office in Eindhoven just as I did to get the original card.

If you can’t lean on your spouse’s employer for assistance (and if you can’t, they must be jerks), the IND provides the form you must complete on their website. If your Dutch is rough, you’ll want to get help because the form is 28 pages long and all in Dutch! Also the cost of extension is quite high, 288 euros. I’m expecting my husband’s employer to cover this expense for us.

I’ll keep you all posted on what happens next.

Luckily the cat’s don’t need a permit, although I suppose they also don’t get to vote. Trade offs.

A Belastingdienst Visit for ParapluInfo

A visit from the tax man. Convention prep for the UK Web Comix Things. Research. New Website. Language classes. Seriously it goes on and on. But you’re not here to listen to me complain. Just suffice it to say it has been a particularly busy couple of weeks.

Friday I met with a couple of gentlemen from the Belastingdienst at my new business’ office (i.e. my living room) to discuss setting up the administration of the business. I didn’t actually know that they did this before I registered, but it turns out that the tax office regularly checks in on new business owners to make sure their T’s are getting dotted and I’s crossed. The idea is that this early visit will prevent business owners from failing future audits.

The meeting was quite straight forward. They sat down, kindly spoke in English with me, and I showed them what I’d already done to comply with Dutch tax regulations. After the meeting I should receive a report about my status and what steps I need to take to be compliant. Of course the report is in Dutch, but I asked them to email it to me as well and they were quite willing to do so.

Setting up Administration

Actually setting up an administration for an eenmanszaak is pretty straight forward. At its most basic, you must retain records of every penny that comes in and out of your business for 7 years. It seems that your business number (dossiernummer on all the paperwork) needs to be on nearly all paperwork you create, although that may not be strictly true. Also, the tax office representatives also indicated that all Work Proposals I make, even those not agreed to, need to be saved. I’ve got a basic system lined up and the they seemed to think I was doing the right thing.

Invoices & Purchase Orders

Invoices are always numbers sequentially (restarting the sequence every year if you include the year in the number) and have to include the business’ dossier-number and VAT/BTW (its BTW in the Netherlands/VAT everywhere else) number. Not a problem. I had already started doing this with the few invoices I’ve sent out and frankly it makes sense. The parts of a standard invoice should be:

• Date
• Invoice Number
• Your business information including Dossiernummer and VAT/BTW number
• Your client’s business information including VAT/BTW number (unless the client isn’t a business than simply a name and address will do).
• Description of service or product and amount to be paid.
• VAT/BTW amount broken out

See. Pretty easy.

The more confusing aspect is purchases made for your business. If you make a business purchase, you can usually subtract some amount of the VAT/BTW you paid from the amount you owe every quarter to the Belastingdienst. The tax office representatives said that receipts were not enough to make a claim; and instead I needed an official “invoice”. I think they meant a purchase order. For larger purchases this seems sensible, but for smaller purchases (of which I will probably be making many) it seems quite unwieldy. Hopefully I’ll find a workable solution soon because I want to be able to claim some of that money back.

Belastingdienst Online

I also learned that I am responsible for making VAT/BTW tax payments on a quarterly basis (like most Dutch businesses). These payments are actually done through an online section of the Belastingdienst’s website set aside for business owners. And is in Dutch of course.

I’ll hopefully be talking to an accountant soon to help me work out dealing with this aspect of business ownership. I am baffled by how and when to apply VAT/BTW to my services and, since there is so much variety, the tax office representatives couldn’t give me much help.

Now I just have to wait for the report to come and take the time to puzzle the Dutch out. All in all I’m pretty happy they made the visit. I just hope this doesn’t put me on the shortlist for future audits. Its not like ParapluInfo is going to be big business.

Income Tax image by alancleaver_2000 via Flickr. Licensed via Creative Commons Attribution License

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