When hiring crew for a Dutch inland vessel, you can use a G-account of the Tax and Customs Administration.
A G-account is a bank account from which an employment agency, such as ACM, can only pay VAT and wage tax to the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration. This G-account is therefore a blocked bank account which is managed jointly by the employment agency and the Tax and Customs Administration. The G-account has been specially created to safeguard you, as a hirer, for tax fraud.
When you hire crew for a Dutch inland vessel through an employment agency, you are partly responsible for the correct payment of VAT and wage tax. Normally, when the employment agency does not pay these taxes, the Tax and Customs Administration may still hold you liable as hirer of that crew. However, if you pay the payroll taxes into the blocked g-account, the Tax and Customs Administration can no longer hold you liable if the agency does not pay contributions or wage tax.
Therefore always check whether the temporary employment agency which you are doing business with has such a G-account. Pay close attention to whether it is actually a blocked G-account. You can see this by the IBAN number, as the tenth and eleventh characters are always the digits 99. The IBAN number of ACM is for example NL43RABO0991426290.
In practice this principle works very simple. The invoice you receive from ACM contains a full description of the crew and the number of days they were on board. At the bottom of the invoice you will see the total amount of the invoice. You pay this amount to two different bank accounts. One amount to the G-account (21% VAT and 30% of the amount excluding VAT). The rest you pay into the normal bank account of ACM. On the invoice these two different amounts are clearly indicated in the payment details.
Want to know more about the G-account? Contact us today.
