Another ruling on whether a foundation qualifies as an ANBI. North Holland District Court judges not.
We recently described an earlier ruling of this court on the same issue. Also in 2022, this court That the foundation in that case was not an ANBI.
90% or more
The case concerns a foundation whose application for ANBI status is refused by the Inland Revenue. The Court upheld this by ruling that the foundation had not made sufficiently plausible that its activities serve the public interest almost exclusively (for 90% or more).
The foundation states that it focuses on young people who do not function well in society due to addiction, depression and loneliness. These young people are referred by the mental health services, but also come into contact with the foundation through free walk-in sessions.
Generic relaxation and entertainment
The court ruled that the foundation does not have clear criteria for participating in its programmes. There is also no method to determine whether the activities indeed contribute to reducing the vulnerability of the participating young people. Next, the court indicates that the foundation's programmes largely qualify as generic recreation and entertainment, for which, moreover, any young person can sign up.
On this basis, the court concluded that the activities of the foundation primarily serve the personal interests of the participants and not primarily and directly the public benefit.
In a consideration we quote below, the court indicated that the foundation could qualify as an ANBI: “if substantiated and made plausible with concrete data. This could include the number of young people supervised by the claimant during which period, an anonymised record of all intake interviews, a clearer description of the supervision offered by the claimant and concrete data of the percentage of young people and the nature of the jobs and traineeships that have found a job or traineeship as a result of the claimant's supervision. However, the data submitted by the claimant in these proceedings, which, as shown above, indicate broad activities that serve in particular to entertain and relax a very broad target group, are insufficient to conclude that the claimant serves almost exclusively the public benefit.”.
Equality principle
The foundation's reliance on the principle of equality runs directly into trouble. The foundation points to eight institutions listed in the ANBI register, which are comparable to it. The court considers that the foundation has to prove that the Tax Administration of a group of similar cases in the majority has failed to apply the law correctly. The foundation does not provide that proof (but this proof fails in practice in many cases).