A liability decision may make you responsible for tax originally payable by someone else. You receive your own decision from the collector for this. Investigate not only whether the original tax is correct, but especially why you specifically are pursued and for what amount. A tax lawyer can assess the ground of liability, access to information and your own position when objecting. Proceedings by the original tax debtor do not replace your response. Therefore immediately compare the decision with the documents about your relationship with that person or business.
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1. Identify your decision and the ground of liability
Record the addressee, date, reference and named original tax debtor. Liability may arise, for example, from management, hiring in staff or membership of a fiscal unity. Each basis has its own conditions. Merely establishing that you did business with a company is not a complete legal explanation for liability. Ask which statutory provision is being applied and which facts the collector considers to fall within it.
Distinguish an announcement, a request for information and the eventual decision. Keep the envelope and details of receipt and registered dispatch. Also make clear whether the letter is addressed to you personally or to your business. That helps determine who must act, who may authorise representation and which records are needed. If a document is unclear, do not assume an earlier conversation has covered all formal steps.
2. Check the connection with the original debt
Request an overview of the assessments for which you are pursued: tax type, period, assessment number, original amount and current outstanding balance. Have payments, set-offs and reductions shown in it. Liability for a total amount is difficult to check without that reconciliation. The original debtor’s financial file may also have changed since the first investigation or announcement.
Also investigate your relationship with the debtor during the relevant period. For hiring in staff, contracts, invoices, time records and payments are relevant, for example; for a director, appointment and management period also matter. Supply the documents concerning your own position in an organised way. Do not conflate a dispute over the quantity of hired-in labour with a defence intended solely for a director’s notification of inability to pay.
3. Request the information you do not hold yourself
As a third party, you often do not hold the original taxpayer’s return or tax audit. Therefore specifically request from the collector the underlying calculation and documents needed to assess the reason for and extent of your liability. For liability when hiring in staff, the Tax Administration expressly describes that assessment information can be requested from the collector. Also identify missing attachments referred to in the decision.
In a 2020 judgment, Gelderland District Court emphasised the duty to provide a person held liable with information reasonably relevant to challenging the extent of liability. Therefore specify the information you need and its purpose. Keep an overview of documents supplied and missing. Meanwhile, continue monitoring your appeal deadline: a request for information and an objection each have their own function.
4. Challenge your liability and the calculation separately
A first group of questions concerns the statutory conditions for pursuing you as a third party. Does your legal relationship fall within the provision cited? Has the collector selected the correct person and period? Which facts support the alleged liability? A second group concerns its extent: which debt remains outstanding, which part falls within your liability and which payments or corrections have already been processed?
Set out these points separately in the file. Even if you acknowledge a particular business relationship, the amount may have been attributed incorrectly. Conversely, a correctly calculated assessment does not establish every third party’s liability. Also ask your lawyer to check ancillary interest, penalties and costs separately. The conditions for also being liable for these must not disappear unnoticed into an agreement on the original tax.
5. Investigate which defences against the assessment remain available
Your defence may also concern the tax underlying the liability decision. This requires access to the relevant assessment information and analysis of what has already been decided. Your own decision does not reopen every dispute pursued by the original debtor without restriction. The statutory scheme limits matters of fact and circumstance already decided by a final, unappealable court judgment.
Therefore request earlier notices of objection, decisions and information about any pending proceedings. Have an adviser assess exactly which issues were decided on their merits. The mere statement that the assessment is final does not yet fully answer the scope of your own defence. Your lawyer can distinguish which original tax issues remain open for discussion and which arguments specifically concern your liability decision, so that the available scope is used purposefully.
6. Monitor your own objection and collection
The official brochure on liability when hiring in staff gives a deadline of six weeks after the decision’s date for making an objection. Immediately check the remedies clause in your own decision and, if notification is disputed, have the starting date assessed. If necessary, submit an initial objection to the correct decision on time and request time to supplement it. Do not rely solely on the original debtor’s objection.
Also expressly raise the payment aspect. Have an adviser establish what effect your objection has on collection and, where necessary, request a written decision on deferral, the amount concerned and any security. If assets have already been seized, separate urgent assistance may be needed. Keep payment requests and agreements alongside the litigation file so that nobody confuses a substantive response with a confirmed solution to current payment pressure.
7. Prepare an independent assessment of your position
For an initial meeting, bring the complete decision, attachments received, contracts and proof of payment. Add a short chronology of the business relationship and all earlier tax contacts. Mark the calculation components you can verify and those for which information is missing. Ask for an approach starting with the current decision and possible defences, with clear instructions for further file analysis.
Also discuss any claims against the original debtor or other parties involved. A contractual indemnity or possible recourse claim does not automatically resolve the collector’s liability decision; these are different legal relationships. Therefore check whether joint representation suits everyone’s interests. Agree who requests information, who monitors your deadlines and when decisions will be made about further tax remedies if the objection is rejected.
Frequently asked questions
Can I object if the assessment was imposed on someone else?
You can challenge your own liability decision. Within that challenge, aspects of the underlying tax may also be relevant. The scope must be assessed, including by reference to earlier final, unappealable court decisions.
Must I wait for the original debtor’s proceedings?
No. Monitor your own decision and deadlines. Do ask about those proceedings, because a reduction or substantive finding may matter to your liability decision.
Does an agreement that my counterparty would pay all taxes help?
That agreement may matter for recourse between the parties, but does not automatically prevent the collector from applying statutory liability. Have the tax decision and your contractual rights assessed separately.
Sources
These sources relate to this page. For a specific case, check current rules and your own documents.
- Belastingdienst: aansprakelijkheid bij inlening personeel Accessed: 2026-10-23
- Rechtbank Gelderland 1 september 2020, ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2020:4458 Accessed: 2026-10-23
- Gerechtshof Arnhem-Leeuwarden 27 februari 2024, ECLI:NL:GHARL:2024:1513 Accessed: 2026-10-23
- Gerechtshof Den Haag 6 juli 2016, ECLI:NL:GHDHA:2016:2013 Accessed: 2026-10-23
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Editorial team Tax law in the Netherlands
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