Dutch Coalition on the Brink: Tax Plan Passes Without VVD

The Dutch cabinet's 2027 tax plan cleared the Tweede Kamer on Thursday evening by 76 votes to 74 — with the coalition's own VVD voting against it. Two seats is all that separated the government from defeat, and the arithmetic leaves Prime Minister Rob Jetten's cabinet closer to collapse than at any point since it took office.

The vote was never really about line items. For months the right-wing liberal VVD has drawn a red line at any new levy on wealth, arguing it would drive entrepreneurs and capital out of the Netherlands. This week D66 and the CDA crossed that line, backing an amendment written by the left-wing PRO and the pan-European party Volt. The deal trades roughly €1 billion in new revenue from wealthier households for about €900 million in relief for low and middle earners. Under the coalition agreement, that is not supposed to happen without all four partners signing off. On Thursday it happened anyway.

How a scaled-down millionaires' tax reached 76 votes

The PRO–Volt amendment is a trimmed version of the "millionaires' tax" the two parties campaigned on. Their original plan was built to raise about €1.5 billion; the version adopted raises roughly €1 billion. Nearly €900 million of that is spent cancelling a planned rise in the lowest income tax rate — the measure D66 and the CDA sold as cost-of-living relief for working households.

The money comes from box 3, the Dutch system for taxing savings and investments, which now runs two rates: 35.5% on returns up to €60,000 a year, and 38.5% above that. The package also clamps down on "paper gifts", an arrangement in which parents promise money to their children on paper to reduce gift and inheritance tax. About €400 million still has to be found from wealth taxes from 2028, which means the fight has been deferred, not settled.

The majority that carried the night was stitched together late. D66 and the CDA voted with PRO, Volt, the pensioners' party 50PLUS, ChristenUnie, Denk and the animal rights party PvdD. PvdD had said on Wednesday it would vote against; it flipped shortly before the vote after D66 and CDA agreed to raise the tax on private jets and drop a planned increase in train fares. An anti-immigration PVV motion of no confidence in the cabinet was then defeated by 116 votes to 34.

What the 76–74 vote actually changes

For anyone with savings above €60,000 in returns, the calculation changes from 1 January. The two-tier box 3 rate is the most concrete legacy of Thursday's vote, and it arrives alongside the cut to the lowest bracket — a combination that redistributes roughly €1 billion a year downward from the top of the income and wealth distribution.

What it does not change, yet, is who runs the country. The VVD has pointedly refused to say whether it will stay in the coalition. That silence is the story: a governing party that voted against its own government's flagship budget bill, and now has to decide whether to keep governing.

Brekelmans calls it 'appalling' — and defers the decision

VVD parliamentary leader Ruben Brekelmans left the chamber without answering the question everyone was asking. He described the day's events as "appalling" and made clear the party would not be bounced into a decision overnight.

"I'm not going to make a decision two minutes after the votes." — Ruben Brekelmans, VVD parliamentary leader, speaking to broadcaster NOS

The awkward detail for the VVD is implementation. The tax plan will have to be carried out by the party's own finance minister, Eelco Heinen — a minister executing a wealth tax his party spent months denouncing. Jetten, for his part, has spent the days since the vote talking about a "serious fresh start" rather than a resignation.

What happens next

• Friday morning: Jetten meets his two deputy prime ministers — VVD leader and defence minister Dilan Yeşilgöz and the CDA's Bart van den Brink — at the Ministry of General Affairs in The Hague, to test whether the relationship can be rebuilt.
• Coming days: The VVD faction decides whether to withdraw from the coalition. A withdrawal would end the Jetten I cabinet; the alternative is a rewritten coalition agreement.
• Senate: The tax plan now goes to the Eerste Kamer, where the coalition does not control a majority and where the wealth tax will face a second, slower fight.
• 2028: Roughly €400 million in additional wealth taxation still has to be legislated, guaranteeing another round of this argument in the next budget cycle.

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Sources: DutchNews.nl, "Coalition in crisis as tax plan passes without VVD support", 12 November 2026; NL Times, "PM Jetten meeting with Deputy Prime Ministers to try and keep coalition from collapsing", 13 November 2026; NOS liveblog of the Tweede Kamer vote, 12 November 2026.