We do not charge any consultancy fees to clients who use our proprietary royalty conduit solutions. Instead we are paid by the fiduciary services provider on a success fee basis for our tax advice. Regular tax advice outside the scope of royalty conduit structures ”our style” is given on a fee per hour basis.
Our advisory rates for 2015 are:
EUR 350 per hour excl. VAT for a senior tax partner
EUR 275 per hour excl. VAT for a senior lawyer or senior tax manager
EUR 195 per hour for professional tax and legal staff (university degree)
EUR 110 per hour for administrative support staff (VAT returns, CIT returns etc.)
We are always willing to discuss with clients the possibility to enter into a no cure no pay agreement to resolve their tax issues, be it for tax structure design and tax planning, implementation or due diligence.
Any expenses connected to the royalty conduit activities which we might undertake for clients are for the account of the Dutch owner of the entities involved and are paid from the gross margins which his legal entities generate from conducting the business for clients. The main cost categories which the owner (contractually) pays for himself, can be summarised as follows:
1) Accounting fees / expenses of accounting personnel;
2) Fees and expenses for the preparation of annual accounts;
3) Fees and expenses for any statutory audits foreseen under Netherlands accounting law or practice;
4) Fees and expenses for tax advice concerning any Netherlands tax issues and any international tax issues involving Dutch tax treaties;
5) Expenses relating to any audits conducted by the Dutch tax authorities;
6) Fees for the preparation of corporate income tax returns;
7) Fees for the preparation of VAT returns and EU VAT listings;
8) Chamber of Commerce and Trade Register fees in the Netherlands;
9) Dutch Central Bank fees and Central Bureau for Statistics fees;
10) All expenses relating to the entity’s paperwork (letterhead paper; invoicing paper; business cards etc.) and the entity’s logo, if incurred in the Netherlands;
11) All expenses relating to residency certificates, translations thereof and any fees incurred to obtain an apostille, a legalization and / or a superlegalization of such residency certificates and/or the translations thereof;
12) All taxes in the Netherlands on the business of the entity involved, such as corporation tax, dividend tax, payroll tax and VAT, including prepayments thereof;
13) All expenses of a legal and tax review of documents, submitted by clients, from a Netherlands legal and tax optimization viewpoint;
14) All fees for directors, supervisory directors and/or proxy holders who are resident in the Netherlands;
15) All expenses of tax disputes with the Netherlands tax authorities on any tax issues concerning his companies, including time and expenses to bring a case to a Tax Court;
16) All bank expenses relating to money transfers from the Netherlands to a foreign destination and the bank expenses relating to maintaining the electronic banking facilities;
17) All expenses relating to the use of a courier to submit invoices or contracts and other paperwork to foreign destinations;
18) Any and all fees for the execution of the royalty agreements (account manager fees).
Our royalty conduit solutions are cheaper than any traditional royalty conduit services concept where the client owns the Dutch legal entity. When using an entity owned by a Dutch resident for royalty conduit purposes, there is no more need for transfer pricing benchmark studies, advance tax rulings, outside legal and tax advice, bookkeeping and annual accounts preparation fees. The drafting of legal documents is for the client’s account, however, since the Dutch structure forms part of his business.