Some countries are discussing the option of introducing a so-called sugar tax to combat health problems. The Dutch Government however has chosen a more sophisticated approach. Today the Dutch Government has announced its plans to introduce a so-called (computer) screen tax. The idea behind the plan is that every new generation is becoming less healthy and that this is partly caused by insufficient movement. According to the Dutch Government this insufficient movement is a.o. caused by people spending more and more time behind (computer) screens. To discourage people from spending even more time behind (computer) screens, the Dutch Government published a law proposal to introduce a so-called (computer) screen tax.

Furthermore the Dutch Government states that the problem of spending too much time behind a computer is an EU-wide problem. Therefore the Dutch Minister of Finance has announced that the Dutch Government will plea with the European Commission and the European Parliament to come up with a proposal to introduce the new (computer) screen tax on an EU-wide basis. According to the pres release the Dutch Government sets on reaching a political agreement on this newly to be introduced (computer) screen tax during its presidency.

Based on the law proposal, in order to be able to levy the tax all owners of computers, laptops, tablets, mobile phones and similar devices in the Netherlands will have to download software that was specially developed for the Dutch tax authorities. The software will monitor the daily use of the respective device.

Based on the current law proposal the first 2 hours of daily use are free of charge, the next 6 hours a screen tax of 0.03 Euro will be due. All use exceeding 8 hours on a daily basis will be taxed against 0.10 Euro. User will automatically receive an assessment via the monitoring software at the first day of the next month. The taxes will be due on this assessment will then have to be paid before the 15^th day of that same month.

If people are caught not having installed the monitoring software on a device, fines can be as high as 5,000 Euro. (500 Euro for a first offense, 2,000 Euro for a second offense and 5,000 Euro for later offenses).

Extensive information on the law proposal published by the Dutch Government can be found here (The information is also available in the English language).

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