The amount of the payable tax reduction or deduction under the WBSO depends, among other things, on the startup qualification. The difference is significant: for a withholding agent (for example, a BV), it can yield over 38% more, and for a self-employed person, even 50%!
The first question you must answer is whether your company has had employees on the payroll for all of the past five years. If so, then your company is not a start-up .
If the company has not been liable for withholding tax for one or more years in the past five years (has not had any employees on the payroll), then we can proceed to the next step.
The question then is in how many of the past five years the company has held one or more R&D declarations. If you have held an R&D declaration in three or more of those past five years, that is the end of it: your company is then not a start-up .
And then you become hopeful: your company has not been liable for withholding tax in more than one of the past five years, and your company has had R&D declarations in fewer than three of those five.
But we are not there yet: the next question is whether the undertaking is a continuation: have activities of another undertaking been acquired? And, if so, has that other undertaking had R&D declarations in the past five years?
If that is the case: the undertaking is a continuation of another undertaking and that other undertaking has held R&D declarations for one or more years in the past five years, then those years count towards the applicant, provided that the ownership structures of the undertakings constitute an affiliation or substantial interest.
For affiliation, one enterprise must own at least one-third of the shares of the other enterprise, or there must be a third enterprise that owns one-third of the shares of the applicant and also of the enterprise whose activities the applicant continues. Substantial interest exists if, for example, a sole proprietorship is converted into a private limited company (BV) in which the owner of the sole proprietorship holds at least 5% of the shares.
And then we have it: if there is both continuation and affiliation or substantial interest, the years in which R&D declarations were issued for the undertaking whose activities were acquired count towards the total.
And then we have it: if the applicant enterprise has been exempt from withholding tax for at least one year in the past five years AND that enterprise has held R&D declarations in no more than three of the past five years, including any declarations from a preceding enterprise, then the applicant qualifies as a start-up .
It is quite understandable that the above is difficult to follow. In that case, please ask us how it works: call 085 - 210 6240 or email info@vectrix.nl .