Week 8

Week 8

Building Works (Not much else happening, really)

A new roof! Could have been thatch or tiles but I rather liked the idea of corrugated iron - a much more familiar building material in Australia than here. In fact, over the 20 plus years of living here, I don't think I have ever seen a house with it. Our own old hay shed at the back has it and I think I have seen only a handful of other (out) buildings with it. Strangely, the most common question so far has been "what about the noise"?. (ie. of the rain, presumably). I'm pretty sure it won't bother me - even if I could hear it!

Our fake poles made waterproof. Traditionally, the four corner poles support the basic construction of a hay shed - with a "floating" roof in some cases. A wooden "condom", for want of a better word, will slide over the top, to give the same appearance as the fake pole underneath the roof line.

And the end result.....

Who knows what you might find.....?

The rainwater down pipes have to be connected to this. While we're at it, I'll be trying to connect a few other things that should have been connected 20 (or more? ) years ago... I'm definitely getting too old for this !!. Some of the old pipes were made of asbestos (see later).

And the end result...

2024 Asbestos Legislation

As I understand it (always a proviso with me), there is legislation declaring that by 2024 "asbestos is illegal if it is still in use" - or words to that effect. All of the farms around here and presumably throughout the Netherlands have huge roof areas of asbestos. Apparently, farmers will get some assistance (along with all their other subsidies) to replace it. Ours is an ex-farm and therefore doesn't rate the same assistance. One estimate for the whole of the country is in the order of €20 Billion with subsidies "for the private sector"(us) at €295Million this year.  A few people I have spoken to, have said that they "simply don't (or won't ) have the money so "what are "they" (the authorities) going to do"? A bit more worrisome in our case, as the removal of the "Certificate of Occupancy" would be the end of the matter, business-wise.

Automobile, the Cash Cow (apologies in advance for the heavy reading)

A while ago, I bemoaned the very existence of the Special Private Automobile Tax (BPM). In fact, I've been bemoaning it for more than 20 years, more in terms of "why do people just shrug their shoulders and accept it"? Cost of car + 45% and THEN BTW (GST, VAT) on TOP of that! (at 21.5% and the only country in the EU that has it. 

I've been reading up on it a bit and it now seems a bit different.

The EU told the Netherlands that they had to remove it in order to be in line with the rest of the EU (Again, my limited understanding).

If you are liable for the payment of bpm the level of the bpm amount is:

for a passenger car determined by the CO2 emission of the passenger car in grams per kilometre. 

For a delivery van, campervan and motorcycle determined by the net list price.

Just quickly, for a petrol car with emissions of 140 gms/kilometre, the BPM is €6728 (remember before GST is calculated).
But that's not all....

The Diesel Surcharge

The Government site gives an example based on a diesel car with emissions of 200gms/km ie, more than the example for petrol, above.

So, in this case the Diesel Surcharge is €11,495 ON TOP of the amount calculated for a petrol car with the same emmissions!!

So there it is; around €19000 extra before GST is calculated.

But, it's all in a good cause, right? reducing pollution....?

Now, in the aftermath of the Volkswagen scandal, someone here has taken what I can only describe as an "enlightened" view of this imposition. (BTW, that's why the Volkswagen thing is so important here, because of the tax revenue that the Government has missed out on).

Again, in my own words and with my own probably limited understanding of it, the new argument goes like this. IF the Government is truly committed to reducing pollution then wouldn't it make sense to make cars more affordable for "normal" people and so have everyone driving vehicles which produce less pollution? Hand in hand with this could be increased road taxes (yes, there is that as well!!) for vehicles over say, three years old.

Manure, another quirky tax thing

Owning a Milk Quota was always a big deal, particularly around here, the home of the Frisian Cow, after all. Dairy Farmers could only produce according to their Quota; such is the way of producing milk. With totally NO research whatsover, I can only relate what has happened in Janny's family. One of the brothers had a fairly large Quota which he sold (for a considerable amount of money) in order to become a Chicken Farmer. They now produce more than 30,000 eggs per day! 

For the past 31 years, the European Union has had quotas, or limits, on how much milk farmers can produce.

The rules were put in place so farmers wouldn't make too much but would also get a fair price.

But now those quotas have been lifted so with no limits farmers are being allowed to produce as much milk as they want.

At this point I did do a little research but couldn't find what I was looking for - and that is that, in the Netherlands at least, there is (what amounts to) a tax on how much manure can be disposed of. We're actually storing some for a nephew; it helps that we can be on his list.

I obviously need to do some more work on this, but my first thought was, yeah, that'd be right..."if they don't get you one way (paying for the Quota) they'll get you another  (paying for the manure)".

On Ben...

Much better to finish on a brighter note.... it looks like Ben is planning to go to Hong Kong for some of his further studies. He has found it extremely difficult to get back in to study mode after his work experience and living in Amsterdam. Understandable, I guess.....