Wording of Tax Decisions – The Netherlands

In this note, the author outlines various aspects of the drafting of tax decisions in the Netherlands. After providing a brief overview of the function and structure of a court decision, the author discusses how detailed a decision should be in terms of describing the judicial proceedings, the facts, the legal reasons and the outcome. He then comments on the style used in writing decisions, i.e. detached versus personal, plain language, as well as presentation techniques.