What happened?
On 24 March 2026, Advocate General P.J. Wattel at the Parket bij de Hoge Raad issued conclusion ECLI:NL:PHR:2026:283 in case 23/03848. The case concerns a self-employed labour and process safety consultant who worked through a CV and a BV via a recruitment agency. The Arnhem-Leeuwarden Court of Appeal convicted him for intentional incorrect income tax, VAT, and corporate income tax returns for 2013 to 2016, plus false bank statements, and imposed 18 months imprisonment.
The case file records payments of € 917,238.70 to the CV for 2012 to 2016 and € 142,248 to the BV in 2016. The alleged fiscal disadvantage included € 325,882 income tax, € 145,835 VAT, and € 132,600 corporate income tax.
The Advocate General advised quashing and remitting the judgment. The core defects were structural: the Court of Appeal had not explained why the CV was liable for corporate income tax under the historical rules, and had not explained how the same receipts could be treated as both personal income and entity receipts. This is an Advocate General conclusion, not a final Hoge Raad judgment.
Analysis
For founders, ZZP professionals, and owner-managed companies, the signal is reconciliation. A legal form, invoice, bank account, or UBO record is not enough if the file cannot show who earned the income, who invoiced, who received payment, which tax subject reported it, and how money moved to the founder.
Control is relevant, but it is not the same as private income. A BV can receive revenue without every euro becoming personal income immediately. A CV may have separate VAT, income-tax, and historical corporate-tax questions. Since 2025, Dutch CVs are in principle transparent for corporate income tax, while labour-relationship enforcement has returned to normal control. That newer context does not change this old case, but it does change today’s operating discipline.
Contact us today to ensure your business's financial clarity and governance discipline with Altroverso's expert guidance.
Governance
The weakness is a file that tells different stories in different places: project agreement, invoice, VAT return, corporate income tax return, bank flow, owner current account, and private tax return. In small structures, the board file should show the route from work performed to entity revenue and from entity revenue to founder benefit.
Risk
The exposure is not only tax correction. It can become criminal, financial, and personal when deliberate incorrect filing, false supporting material, or unexplained extraction is alleged. Poor attribution also weakens cash reserves, pricing, and margin visibility, because the business cannot see which tax and liability line carries the pressure.
Compliance
Keep the tax-subject file separate from the labour-status file. For each revenue stream, the administration should connect contract, performing person, invoicing entity, VAT number, bank receipt, ledger entry, tax return, salary, dividend, loan, or current-account movement. Belastingdienst record rules make invoices and digital records part of the evidence map.
Daily operational takeaway
Map one current revenue stream from contract to founder payment. If the route is not readable in 15 minutes, the control file needs attention.
ECLI:NL:PHR:2026:283 Parket bij de Hoge Raad
The data, sourcing, and analysis behind this article were conducted by Paolo Maria Pavan. AI was not used to identify sources, build the factual basis, or produce the analytical judgment contained here. AI was used only as a drafting aid. The final English text was personally reviewed, edited, and approved by the author before publication. Any translated versions are AI-generated from the original English text.
