Application of anonymous rate in the payroll administration

Source: Guide tax authorities. Update 13 March 2023

In some situations, you have to apply the anonymous rate for an employee. This guide tells you when this applies and how to process this in the payroll tax return.

You apply the anonymous rate in the following situations:

• The employee did not provide you with a name, address, place of residence or citizen service number (BSN) before the 1st working day. Or on the 1st working day, if you hire your employee on this day.
• You do not establish the identity of the employee receiving wages from present employment.
• You do not keep the data with your payroll or do not keep the data in the correct way. This only applies to an employee who receives wages from present employment.
• You know or could have known that you received incorrect data from the employee.
• The employee does not have a valid residence or work permit.

If you apply the anonymous rate, the following applies:

• The rate for the wage tax/national insurance contributions to be withheld is 52%.
• You do not take the wage tax credit into account.
• For the calculation of the employee insurance contributions, you do not take into account the maximum premium wage.
• For the income-related Zvw contribution, you do not take the maximum contribution wage into account.

Delayed issue of BSN

Can you demonstrate that you and your employee have no influence on the absence of the BSN, such as a delayed processing by the municipality? Then you do not have to apply the anonymity rate. If in doubt, you can ask the tax authorities for permission. To do so, send a written request to your tax office.

Wages from previous employment

If you pay wages from previous employment, you apply the anonymous rate if:

• the employee has not provided a name, address, place of residence or BSN before you make the first payment to this employee
• you know or could have known that you have received incorrect information from your employee

Postal address

If the residential address is not known, you may use a postal address. However, the anonymous rate still applies.

Employee number

If you do not have a BSN, you may not use a fictitious BSN. You then use an employee number. You state this number in the section ‘Employee number’. You continue to apply the anonymous rate.

You may not use the employee number as a BSN.

Correcting anonymous rate

From 2023, you may, after receiving the complete/accurate data, correct the earlier deduction of the anonymous rate. This can only be done within the same calendar year. You must then send corrections for that year’s earlier returns.

Please note
Until 2022 inclusive, you may not correct previous return periods in which you have applied the anonymous rate. The employee can use the income tax return to offset or recover the excess payroll tax withheld.

Example
Employee A enters employment on 1 March 2023. The employee does not provide you with a bsn. You therefore apply the anonymous rate of 52%. A’s gross monthly salary is €1,000. You withheld €520 each time from March to July. At the beginning of August, A still provides you with the BSN.

As of the next wage payment, you apply the time sheet table. The deduction for a monthly wage of € 1,000 is (indicatively as an example) € 8. You may send corrections for the periods March to July. You do so with the August return. These corrections mean that you can offset €520 – €8 = €512 for those 5 declarations against your August return. You settle this amount of (5 x € 512 =) € 2,560 net with your employee.

Employee insurance and Zvw contribution

From the moment the anonymous rate no longer applies, you again take into account the maximum premium wage for employee insurance and the maximum contribution wage for the income-related Zvw contribution.

If this is still within the calendar year, the maximums for employee insurance and Zvw will be applied to the total wages for the calendar year. Because you again take these ceilings into account, the amount of the income-related Zvw contribution and employee insurance contributions may be lower or negative. This is because you apply the system of progressive cumulative calculation.

BSN known

When the BSN is known, you state both the BSN and the employee number once in the next period in the return. You may not correct this for previous periods until 2022 inclusive. There is an exception if an employee’s BSN becomes known when the employee is no longer employed. In that case, you can only supplement the data via a period correction.

Correction of incorrect BSN

Have you previously used an incorrect BSN and do you wish to correct it? This can only be done by withdrawing the declaration line with the incorrect BSN and then submitting a new declaration line with the correct BSN.

Wrongly applied anonymous rate

If you have wrongly applied the anonymous rate due to an error in the administration, you may always correct this. For example, if the employee did supply the BSN on time, but it had not yet been processed in the administration.