During the corona crisis, the share of self-employed with tax debt doubled. In 2024, it decreased somewhat again, but it remains higher than before the crisis. Among employees, the percentage with tax debt rose slightly to 6 percent during the corona crisis but fell back to 5 percent in 2024.
Average tax debt increased
The average debt of self-employed increased further in 2024, to nearly 2.7 thousand euros per zmp’er and nearly 1.9 thousand euros per zzp’er. Average means half have a lower debt amount and half have a higher amount. The average tax debt of self-employed has been rising since 2021. More than 22 thousand zmp’ers and 67 thousand zzp’ers had a tax debt of more than 10 thousand euros.
At the beginning of 2024, there was a total debt of 5.5 billion euros at the Tax Administration: 3.0 billion euros from zzp’ers, 1.4 billion euros from employees, and 1.1 billion euros from zmp’ers. At the beginning of 2019, this was still 2.4 billion for the three groups combined.
Debt is more often problematic among employees
Although self-employed more often have tax debt than employees, the debt is somewhat more often problematic for employees. Of the employees with tax debts, 35 percent have problematic debt. Among zzp’ers this is 33 percent and among zmp’ers 30 percent. This share has increased for each group since 2021. The increase was greatest among zmp’ers, especially during the corona crisis.Self-employed with tax debt more often have negative net worth
Self-employed with tax debt more often have negative net worth than self-employed without debt. Negative net worth means debts exceed the value of assets. Among zzp’ers with tax debt, 22 percent have negative net worth, compared to 7 percent among zzp’ers without debt. A majority of self-employed with tax debt have assets above 100 thousand euros. A relatively large part of this consists of business assets. Among self-employed without tax debt, such high assets occur even more often.
44 percent of zzp’ers in construction have tax debt
Among zzp’ers, tax debts occur most often in construction: 44 percent of all zzp’ers in that sector have to deal with this. This is more than in 2019, when it was still 24 percent. Tax debts among zmp’ers in construction have also increased, from 15 percent to 34 percent. Among zmp’ers, tax debts occur most often in the government, education, and healthcare sectors. There, 40 percent of zmp’ers have tax debt. In 2019, this was still 12 percent.
