{"id":173604,"date":"2024-11-21T14:57:54","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T13:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=173604"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:27:36","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:27:36","slug":"senators-demand-facts-on-fiscal-law-and-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2024\/11\/21\/senators-demand-facts-on-fiscal-law-and-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Senators demand \u2018facts\u2019 on fiscal law and business"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever since the news came out that Netflix was offered to buy \u2018a voice in the scientific debate\u2019, the question has again been raised: are fiscal law professors independent enough? The Senate still has its doubts.<\/p>\n

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In fiscal law, the academic world and the business world seem to be heavily intertwined. With one incident after another, there\u2019s a question that keeps coming back: does this field serve business or science?<\/p>\n

Professor and tax consultant<\/h2>

Senators of VVD and GroenLinks-PvdA asked questions together. They wanted Minister Eppo Bruins to tell them how many full professors of tax law are also tax consultants. But Bruins doesn\u2019t know, his answers reveal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And why doesn\u2019t he know? Bruins doesn\u2019t have a good definition of \u2018fiscal law\u2019 and of \u2018commercial consultancy firms\u2019, says his spokesperson, so that means he can\u2019t provide any figures. At umbrella organisation Universities of the Netherlands they don\u2019t know either, Bruins already wrote<\/a> to the Senate a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n

More data<\/h2>

This is remarkable, as in the past year more data has actually been made public about the ties between professors and the KPMGs of this world. After all, the ministry itself told<\/a> universities to disclose the ancillary activities and sponsors of full professors. The universities have since done this.<\/p>\n

Jan van de Streek, professor of tax law in Leiden, is therefore critical of the minister\u2019s evasive answer. Those university lists of sponsors and ancillary activities provide a better overview than ever before, he believes. According to Van de Streek, it\u2019s \u2018entirely clear who is and isn\u2019t independent of a commercial consultancy firm\u2019.<\/p>\n

And lists aside, he is aware of several studies on the number of fiscal law professors with dual roles. Those took more time and effort: back then, scientists and journalists had to scrape the data together themselves. So is it too much to ask for the minister to find out how things currently stand?<\/p>\n

Dual roles<\/h2>

Van de Streek is known as a critic of the large number of colleagues with \u2018dual roles\u2019 in his field. At one time, he himself was employed by Loyens & Loeff, a firm in Amsterdam\u2019s Zuidas business district, alongside his professorship at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). This \u2018marriage\u2019 ended when he became outspokenly critical of tax-evading multinationals after the financial crisis, Van de Streek told<\/a> Leiden University magazine Mare.<\/p>\n

There are other examples that also show a dual role can lead to conflicts. But that\u2019s not even the reason why the VVD and GroenLinks-PvdA senators asked questions on the subject. Senator Daan Roovers from the latter party explains that for her, it\u2019s about the scientific discipline as a whole. \u201cIf you see that a considerable percentage of professors also have major interests in the commercial sector, this does raise a few questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Netflix<\/h2>

The tax interests of multinationals sometimes trickle into academia. The University of Amsterdam\u2019s tax law department promised American streaming service Netflix \u2018a voice in the scientific debate\u2019 in exchange for half a million dollars of sponsor money for one of the department\u2019s projects, an investigation by Follow the Money revealed<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

This month, more than one year later, the UvA\u2019s academic integrity committee ruled<\/a> that the independence of the department wasn\u2019t compromised, although what happened did create the \u2018appearance of partiality\u2019.<\/p>\n

An UvA committee that investigated the many ancillary activities with consultancy firms in 2022 saw that the tax law department \u201chas a one-sided focus on corporate issues\u201d, causing certain topics to disappear from view. \u201cIncome tax, dividend tax, VAT, benefits and the like are barely covered in research.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow-up questions<\/h2>

Does this only apply to the UvA or to the scientific discipline as a whole, wonders Roovers. \u201cWe\u2019ll ask follow-up questions, because the answers given by the minister are unsatisfactory\u201d, she says. \u201cI\u2019m worried about the system, even if all of the individual professors behave with integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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