Zeeland West Brabant District Court ruled that the journeys an employee drove to his personal trainer and to the golf club grounds qualified as private mileage.
Declaration of no private use
The employee had a car provided to him by his employer for a Statement no private car use issued. On the basis of this statement, the employer is not allowed to include an addition for the private use of the car in the payroll. A condition for the omission of the additional taxable benefit is that no more than 500 private kilometres are driven with the car in a calendar year, with kilometres driven as part of the employee's commute to work being regarded as business kilometres.
Subsequent taxation of the employee
The employee must prove that he did not exceed the limit of 500 private kilometres. If he fails to do so, the tax authorities will impose the additional tax assessment not on the employer but on the employee. Such an additional tax assessment is the reason for the proceedings in court.
Proof
The process starts with the Tax Office requesting the employee to prove that less than 500 private kilometres were driven in 2018. To do so, the employee submits his trip registration to the Tax Office. The Tax Office then classifies the trips recorded in the trip registration as business trips to the training sessions the employee has with his personal trainer and the trips to the golf club as private trips and finds that more than 500 private kilometres were driven.
The employee feels that the trips to the personal trainer are business-related because the training sessions are essential to the performance of his work. They are specific training sessions that help to make the consequences of a skiing accident bearable. During the golf lessons, according to the employee, business meetings are always held. Moreover, both the personal trainer and the golf instructor are clients of the company where the employee works.
The Court considered the private element of the trips to the personal trainer to be predominant. According to the employee, the conversations during the golf lessons were mainly held with his girlfriend and and her daughter, so the Court considered the business nature of these conversations as insufficiently substantiated.
The court upholds the after-tax assessment. The default penalty imposed (25% of the additional income tax levied) is reduced on the grounds of the excessive duration of the proceedings.