The Dutch Tax and Customs Administration has no legal obligation to pass on income details to landlords of social housing accommodations, nor does it have permission to do so, the court says.

The Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State on February 3 decided that the Tax and Customs Administration has no permission to pass on tenants’ income details to social housing landlords when the latter ask for it.

Confidentiality

According to the Administrative Jurisdiction Division, an obligation for Tax and Customs Administration to pass on income details to landlords of social housing accommodations must be explicitly and clearly part of the law.

Such a legal obligation is lacking presently, but is necessary because the Tax Administration is not permitted to pass received information on to others, unless the law explicitly requires the Tax Administration to do so.

Considering this duty of confidentiality, it is not acceptable that such an obligation "is exclusively deduced from the establishment history of either the coherence between legal provisions, or is suggested for the sake of the effectiveness of a legal regulation."

Skew residents

So-called skew residents are people living in a social housing accommodation, but whose income is actually too high to be entitled to social housing.

Often these skew residents cause a waiting list for people with lower incomes and block the latter from being able to find affordable or social housing.

The government tries to tackle skew residents by implementing rent increases for households with a certain minimum income.

Fighting imbalance

From 2013, social housing landlords could ask for their tenants’ income details from the Tax and Customs Administration in order to combat the imbalance.

When the Tax Administration details show that tenants have an income that is too high, landlords are permitted to increase their rent.

As a result, tenants are stimulated to move from social housing to a bought estate or a rented accommodation on the open market, thereby making social renting accommodation available again to people with lower incomes.

With this decision of the Administrative Jurisdiction Division, the practice of asking for income details has come to an end. It is up to the legislature to come up with a solution.