Hans Vijlbrief

Johannes "Hans" Alexander Vijlbrief (born 17 August 1963) is a Dutch civil servant, economist, and politician, who currently serves as State Secretary for Finance together with Alexandra van Huffelen. He is a member of the social-liberal party Democrats 66 (D66).

Hans Vijlbrief
Vijlbrief (2020)
State Secretary for Finance
Incumbent
Assumed office 29 January 2020 Serving with Alexandra van Huffelen
Prime Minister	Mark Rutte
Preceded by	Menno Snel
President of the Eurogroup Working Group
In office 1 February 2018 – 29 January 2020[1]
Preceded by	Thomas Wieser
Succeeded by	Tuomas Saarenheimo
Treasurer-General
In office 1 July 2011 – 1 February 2018
Preceded by	Ronald Gerritse
Succeeded by	Christiaan Rebergen
Personal details
Born	Johannes Alexander Vijlbrief 17 August 1963 Voorschoten, South Holland
Political party	Democrats 66
Spouse(s)	Manouche Hetzler
Children	2
Residence	Woubrugge, South Holland
Alma mater	Vrije Universiteit

Vijlbrief started his career at the Ministry of Economic Affairs, after earning his doctorate at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 1992. Subsequently, he worked at the Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) before returning to Economic Affairs, where he filled several positions as director and director-general. Vijlbrief was appointed Treasurer-General of the Ministry of Finance in 2011, and occupied that post until he became president of the advisory body Eurogroup Working Group six and a half years later. He had been a member of that group while serving as Treasurer-General, assisting Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem.

Just after he had been re-elected at the working group, Vijlbrief was appointed State Secretary for Finance together with Alexandra van Huffelen in January 2020. He succeeded Menno Snel, who had resigned as a result of a scandal concerning allowances, and he is responsible for the Tax Administration and tax affairs.

Early life and education

Vijlbrief was born on 17 August 1963 in Voorschoten, a village in South Holland close to Leiden.[2] His father was a sales manager at beverage company Riedel and would later found his own bottler.[3]

He attended the high school Visser 't Hooft Lyceum in Leiden, earning his atheneum diploma in 1981.[2] Thereafter, he studied general economics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam until 1987.[4] He continued studying at the university, receiving his doctorate in economics in 1992.[2] His dissertation was titled "Unemployment insurance and the Dutch labour market".[5]

Early career

After obtaining his PhD, Vijlbrief started working at the Ministry of Economic Affairs, where he filled a number of positions at the directorate General Economic Policy.[2] Minister Hans Wijers appointed him as interim director of that division in 1997.[3][4] Besides, he became director at Erasmus University Rotterdam of the Research Centre for Financial Economic Policy, a part-time job, the next year.[4]

He left the Ministry to work as deputy director at the Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) in 1999.[2] Vijlbrief has told that he later came to regret the move, calling the agency "too quiet" and lacking in pressure.[6] He also became an endowed professor in 2000 at the Vrije Universiteit, his alma mater, specialized in economic policy, and he simultaneously quit his job in Rotterdam.[7]

Vijlbrief returned to the Ministry of Economic Affairs in 2001 in the position of director of General Economic Policy.[2] In July 2004, Minister Laurens Jan Brinkhorst promoted him to Director-General for Economic Policy.[8][9] While in this position, Vijlbrief also chaired a re-evaluation group called "Security and Terrorism" (2009–2010).[4]

Starting in February 2010, he served as Director-General for Energy, Telecommunications, and Markets. Vijlbrief's former position was subsequently eliminated. Its responsibilities were transferred to the secretary-general (general economic policy and EU matters) and his new job (competition and consumer policy).[9] His professorship at the Vrije Universiteit came to an end that same year.[7] Vijlbrief, who had been a member of D66 since 2008, also became more politically involved, helping write the party's election program for the 2010 general election.[3][10][11] Moreover, Vijlbrief led Maria van der Hoeven's successful campaign to get appointed Executive Director of the International Energy Agency in 2011.[12]

Treasurer-General and Eurogroup Working Group

Vijlbrief served as the Treasurer-General of the Ministry of Finance starting in July 2011, after he was appointed by the Council of Ministers. His predecessor, Ronald Gerritse, had vacated the position when he became chairman of the Authority for the Financial Markets.[7] The position also included membership of the Eurogroup Working Group (EWG), an advisory body responsible for preparing the monthly meetings of the Eurogroup.[13][14] Besides, Vijlbrief was chairman of the Economic Policy Committee, a European advisory body, between 2012 and 2014.[15]

In his position at the Eurogroup, Vijlbrief worked for a number of years together with Jeroen Dijsselbloem, when he was Minister of Finance and President of the Eurogroup, on handling the Greek and European debt crises.[13][3] He also managed the two campaigns to get Dijsselbloem elected Eurogroup president.[12] In March 2014, Vijlbrief was chosen to chair the board of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), the eurozone's emergency fund to address government debt.[16] He had been a member of the body's board since 2011 and was also serving on its Risk Committee.[17][18] That same month, Vijlbrief became a member of the board of the European economic think tank Bruegel.[19] During the 2017 Dutch general election season, he was a co-author of D66's election program.[13]

Vijlbrief left the ministry, the EFSF, and Bruegel in 2018 to become the President of the Eurogroup Working Group starting on 1 February, succeeding Thomas Wieser.[14][20] He was elected by the members of the EWG in December after his candidacy had received support from the Dutch cabinet and his only opponent had withdrawn. The decision was later ratified by the Eurogroup itself.[14] Vijlbrief simultaneously became president of the Economic and Financial Committee.[21] While leading the EWG, he unsuccessfully worked on creating a common European deposit insurance.[22] Vijlbrief also started working as endowed professor at the University of Amsterdam specialized in European economic and financial policy in September 2018.[2][23] When his two-year term as president was about to end, Vijlbrief was reappointed for another term in December 2019.[22]

State Secretary for Finance (2020–present)

After State Secretary for Finance Menno Snel resigned in December 2019, it was made public on 26 January that he would be succeeded by Vijlbrief and Alexandra van Huffelen.[24][25] Snel resigned after thousands of recipients of child care allowances had been wrongfully considered fraudsters and had been forced to pay back the money. Some of them had received mostly blacked out pages after they had asked for their records.[25][26] Weeks before Vijlbrief and Van Huffelen were put forward, Minister of Finance Wopke Hoekstra had decided that allowances (toeslagen) and customs would be spun off from the Tax Administration.[27]

Vijlbrief was sworn in as "Secretary for Finance - Tax Affairs and the Tax Administration" by King Willem-Alexander at palace Huis ten Bosch on 29 January.[28] His colleague, Van Huffelen, is in charge of allowances and customs.[29] Vijlbrief is responsible for tax affairs; Tax Administration (including the FIOD); financial relations between the national government and decentralized governments; export credit insurance and facilities; Holland Casino and the Dutch Lottery; currency; and Domains Movable Property.[30] He is also in charge of working out plans for aviation and carbon taxes.[31] Simultaneously with his appointment, he resigned from his positions at the Eurogroup and the University of Amsterdam.[2][13] Shortly before his term started, Vijlbrief declared that he was planning "to make the Tax Administration boring again".[32]

One week after his appointment, Vijlbrief announced that the organization would start working with construction and health care trade associations in order to tackle pseudo self-employment. He also said that the organization would work with trade associations in other sectors later on.[33]

Fraud suspects blacklist

At the end of February, Trouw and RTL Nieuws reported that the Tax Administration had been using a blacklist containing the names of about 180,000 suspected fraudsters.[34] An internal report had concluded one year earlier that the list violated privacy legislation.[34][35] The plug was pulled on the blacklist after journalists had obtained the report – days before the news articles were published.[35] Vijlbrief sent a letter to the House of Representatives disclosing the blacklist two days after it had been revealed. He also told the House that officials at the Tax Administration had unjustly blacked out a paragraph about the blacklist in a document that the organization was forced to disclose earlier in order to cover up the story. Vijlbrief's predecessor had repeatedly denied the existence of such a list. Vijlbrief called the list an unpleasant surprise and called the problems of the Tax Administration "enormous".[36]

In the surrounding weeks, he had to inform the House about a number of other issues concerning the organization; the Tax Administration had not paid back wrongful reminder fees, there had been small mistakes in the calculation of two tax rates, and the organization had failed to collect debts before becoming statute-barred.[35][37][38]

COVID-19 pandemic

After the COVID-19 pandemic had reached the Netherlands, the cabinet announced on 12 March 2020 that businesses with financial difficulties would be able to postpone tax payments as soon as they submitted a request.[39] The next week, the procedure was simplified and the interest rate on the debts was lowered to almost zero percent.[40] Around 240,000 companies took advantage of the possibility.[41] Vijlbrief also introduced a number of other measures: he and Minister Sigrid Kaag relaxed the application conditions for export credit insurance, he created a €12 billion safety net to guarantee the payment of credit insurance, he made it possible for businesses to deduct their losses from their corporate tax bill earlier, and he and Minister Kajsa Ollongren provided €1.5 billion to aid municipal and provincial governments.[42][43][44][45] Vijlbrief and his colleague Eric Wiebes also assisted in saving shipbuilder Royal IHC from bankruptcy.[46] Besides, the House of Representatives passed his aviation tax on all plane tickets.[47]

As a reaction to the allowances scandal, Vijlbrief en Van Huffelen filed a criminal complaint for official misconduct against the Tax Administration they lead in May 2020. They alleged that civil servants had knowingly collected money from citizens who did not owe money and that they had discriminated on the basis of race.[48] In addition, four high-ranking officials were asked to step aside.[49] The public prosecutor's office later announced that it would not conduct a criminal investigation despite the criminal complaint.[50] When Trouw and RTL Nieuws reported in July that the Tax Administration had wrongfully labeled citizens paying income tax as fraudsters based on suspicions, Vijlbrief and Van Huffelen temporarily shut down the registration systems for fraud.[51]

In May 2020, the Tax Administration announced that in order to counter tax avoidance they would introduce a new tax on dividends in 2024.[52] Vijlbrief also decided that companies registered in tax havens would not be eligible for subsidies related to the COVID-19 pandemic.[53] In June, Vijlbrief announced that he would not follow through on his predecessor's plan to overhaul the savings and investment tax system.[54] He later introduced an additional measure worth €4 billion and called the Baangerelateerde Investeringskorting (BIK) to stimulate the economy: companies were able to deduct investments from their payroll tax bill in the following two years. Opposition parties in the House of Representatives attacked the program, calling it a handout to corporations.[55]

When the Third Rutte cabinet resigned on 15 January 2021 due to the allowances scandal, Vijlbrief became demissionary state secretary.[56]

2021 election

Vijlbrief will run for member of parliament in the 2021 general election, appearing as the twelfth candidate on D66's party list.[57]

Personal life

Vijlbrief is married and has two children. He met his wife, Manouche Hetzler, while he was studying at the Vrije Universiteit.[3][8] Currently, he resides in the South Holland village Woubrugge.[2]

Vijlbrief is a supporter of football club Feyenoord.[3]

References

1. "Statement by the Eurogroup President on the replacement of the Eurogroup working group President". European Council (Press release). 29 January 2020. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
2. "Curriculum vitae Hans Vijlbrief". Government of the Netherlands. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
3. "De invloedrijkste Nederlander in Brussel: door de wol geverfde topambtenaar Hans Vijlbrief". De Volkskrant (in Dutch). 8 January 2018. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
4. "CV Hans Vijlbrief, thesaurier-generaal". Rijksoverheid (in Dutch). 4 December 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 January 2018. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
5. "List of PhD Theses". Tinbergen Institute. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
6. Jak, Hedy (14 March 2018). "Eventually I can force myself to get it done". VU Magazine. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
7. "Hans Vijlbrief thesaurier-generaal bij Financiën". Algemene Bestuursdienst (Press release) (in Dutch). 1 June 2011. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
8. Witt Wijnen, Philip de; Pak, Victor (22 January 2018). "Klassieke West Winger die het met iedereen goed kan vinden". NRC Handelsblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 21 March 2020.
9. "Vijlbrief benoemd tot directeur-generaal Energie en Telecom bij EZ". Infrasite.nl (in Dutch). 18 February 2009. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
10. Douwes, Douwe (21 July 2011). "In het hart van de schuldencrisis". De Volkskrant (in Dutch). Retrieved 10 March 2020.
11. Ruitenbeek, Alex; Jonker, Ulko (27 January 2020). "Een groene doener én een minzame crisismanager voor de Belastingdienst". Het Financieele Dagblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 13 March 2020.
12. Jonker, Ulko (19 December 2017). "Schaduwminister Hans Vijlbrief wordt onderkoning Eurogroep". Het Financieele Dagblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 12 March 2020.
13. Peeperkorn, Marc (26 January 2020). "Hans Vijlbrief: een financieel en organisatorisch zwaargewicht voor de Belastingdienst". De Volkskrant (in Dutch). Retrieved 5 March 2020.
14. Peeperkorn, Marc (14 December 2017). "Nieuwe Europese topfunctie voor Nederland: topambtenaar Vijlbrief wordt voorzitter invloedrijke Brusselse werkgroep". De Volkskrant (in Dutch). Retrieved 8 March 2020.
15. "Dr. J.A. (Hans) Vijlbrief". Parlement.com (in Dutch). Parlementair Documentatie Centrum. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
16. "personalia". Trouw (in Dutch). 25 March 2014. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
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21. "Eurogroup: Hans Vijlbrief appointed President of the Eurogroup working group". European Council (Press release). 22 January 2018. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
22. Cats, Ria (5 December 2019). "Hans Vijlbrief herbenoemd in Brusselse topfunctie bij Eurogroep". Het Financieele Dagblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 11 March 2020.
23. "Personalia 3-9-2018". Het Financieele Dagblad (in Dutch). 3 September 2018. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
24. Stoker, Elsbeth; Peeperkorn, Marc (26 January 2020). "Vijlbrief en Van Huffelen worden staatssecretaris Financiën". De Volkskrant (in Dutch). Retrieved 8 March 2020.
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26. "Advies aan kabinet: compensatie voor meer ouders toeslagenaffaire". RTL Nieuws (in Dutch). 12 March 2020. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
27. Dupuy, Lisa (11 January 2020). "Hoekstra: Douane en Toeslagen geen onderdeel meer van Belastingdienst". NRC Handelsblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 8 March 2020.
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29. "Members of the government". Government of the Netherlands. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
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33. "Fiscus schakelt sector in bij toezicht zzp". Het Financieele Dagblad (in Dutch). 4 February 2020. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
34. Hofs, Yvonne (2 March 2020). "Weer valt er een lijk uit de kast van de Belastingdienst: fiscus hield tóch een zwarte lijst bij". De Volkskrant (in Dutch). Retrieved 8 March 2020.
35. Jonker, Ulko (4 March 2020). "Vijlbrief al in zwaar weer over 'zwarte lijst' Belastingdienst". Het Financieele Dagblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 11 March 2020.
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40. Jonker, Ulko (17 March 2020). "Staatssecretaris Vijlbrief: Het wordt moeilijk, maar we gaan bedrijven helpen". Het Financieele Dagblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 3 August 2020.
41. "Belastinguitstel tot 1 januari, ruime terugbetalingsregeling voor ondernemers" (Press release) (in Dutch). 28 August 2020. Retrieved 5 September 2020.
42. Knoop, Bas (26 March 2020). "Kabinet schiet exporterende bedrijven te hulp". Het Financieele Dagblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 3 August 2020.
43. Leupen, Johan; Betlem, Rutger (7 April 2020). "Kabinet verwacht €1 mrd te verliezen op miljardensteun voor leverancierskrediet". Het Financieele Dagblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 4 August 2020.
44. "Coronaverliezen fiscaal ruimer aftrekbaar". Het Financieele Dagblad (in Dutch). 24 April 2020. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
45. Knoop, Bas (31 August 2020). "Kabinet trekt €777 mln extra uit voor steun aan gemeenten en provincies". Het Financieele Dagblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 5 September 2020.
46. "Scheepsbouwer IHC gered met staatssteun ter waarde van 325 miljoen". RTL Nieuws (in Dutch). 30 April 2020. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
47. "Tweede Kamer stemt in met ticketbelasting". NRC Handelsblad (in Dutch). 2 April 2020. p. 4.
48. "Toeslagenaffaire escaleert: staatssecretarissen doen aangifte tegen hun eigen Belastingdienst". Het Financieele Dagblad (in Dutch). 19 May 2020. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
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52. "Kabinet neemt nieuwe stap om belastingontduiking tegen te gaan". Trouw (in Dutch). 29 May 2020. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
53. Velden, Lisa van der (19 June 2020). "Geen staatssteun voor bedrijven met vestigingen in belastingparadijzen". Het Financieele Dagblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 4 August 2020.
54. "Hans Vijlbrief schrapt plan voor aanpassing spaartaks". Het Financieele Dagblad (in Dutch). 23 June 2020. Retrieved 3 August 2020.
55. Van Unen, David (5 October 2020). "Kabinet steekt 4 miljard euro in bedrijfsinvesteringen". NRC Handelsblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 24 October 2020.
56. "Kabinet-Rutte III gevallen; Wiebes helemaal weg". Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (in Dutch). 15 January 2021. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
57. "D66-leden stemmen nieuwkomers omlaag" [D66 members vote down newcomers]. De Telegraaf (in Dutch). 2 December 2020. Retrieved 13 December 2020.