A word that you hear more and more and that is correct. About 21% of the Dutch fleet is now Youngtimer. That is 1 in 5 cars or 1.8 million pieces.

Maar wat is een Youngtimer nou eigenlijk? Een Youngtimer is een auto van 15 jaar of ouder die, als deze wordt gereden door een bijvoorbeeld een zzp’er en/of freelancer, een erg aantrekkelijke regeling heeft. De Belastingdienst biedt ondernemers namelijk de mogelijkheid om gebruik te maken van de zogeheten Youngtimer-regeling. Iets minder sexy gezegd heet dit bij de Belastingdienst gewoon ‘Auto ouder dan 15 jaar regeling’. Dit houdt in dat je voor een vast percentage de auto zowel privé als zakelijk kan rijden (bijtellen). Alhoewel deze 35% de hoogste bijtellingscategorie is, is het wel de meest voordelige. Je betaalt namelijk 35 procent van de daily value and not like the new or young used cars over the list price.

Example

You drive a new (or young used) BMW 7 series of € 100,000. The addition of this office building on wheels is then approximately € 1,000 net per month, but if the BMW 7 series is 15 years old, this car will only cost € 10,000 (current value) and you will only pay € 100 per month…

Explanation:

• • A New BMW 7-series: € 100,000 x 25% additional tax = € 25,000 x 52% (Income tax rate) = € 13,000 per year (€ 1,083 per month). At a rate of 42% (IB), this is € 875 per month.
• • A 15-year-old BMW 7 series € 10,000 x 35% = € 3,500 x 52% (IB rate) = € 1,820 per year (€ 151 per month). At a rate of 42%, this is € 122.50 per month.

Now we understand that a BMW 7-series may be a bit rough in terms of example, but put it next to a new Volkswagen Golf (catalog value € 25,000) then you will soon cost € 250 per month. In short; you drive a former 'high executive' car for HALF the price of a new Volkswagen Golf...

Are there then some snags? Yes, but luckily you can take this into account and it is not so bad. For example, the maintenance will be a bit higher than with a new car, the road tax is a bit more expensive and an older car just likes a sip of fuel per kilometer driven. But even these costs you will pay with a smile. Why? 1. You have all the advantages of a luxury, large business car and 2. You can deduct all costs from your profit. This means that repairs, road tax, petrol, parking fees, the car wash and everything that is car-related are deductible. Every car-related euro therefore reduces the amount on which you pay tax. On the other hand, you add the little addition to your profit and BAM; the taxman therefore pays a lot to your holy cow. So they can make it more fun…

The VAT correction

Still, the list price of your Youngtimer is not entirely unimportant. If you are liable for VAT, you can claim VAT back on car costs. On the other hand, you have to compensate private use for VAT. You do this as follows. First you have to check whether your Youngtimer is a so-called "margin car". A margin car has been owned by a private person (in Europe) at least once during its lifetime. Since then it has been resold VAT-free. So if there is NO VAT on the purchase invoice, then you are dealing with a margin car. Incidentally, Youngtimers are almost always margin cars.

Actual use

For margin cars that are used for business as well as private use, you have to include 1.5% of the catalog value every year as VAT for private use in the last declaration of the year. Suppose the Youngtimer in our example cost 100,000 euros, then you add 1,500 euros annually for private use to the VAT to be paid. You also have the option to calculate this VAT correction for actual private use. Commuting also counts as private use for VAT. In some cases this can work out more economically. Anyway, they give more substantive information about this on the site of the tax authorities themselves. In addition, they also provide more information about how to calculate the VAT correction in the rare case that there is still VAT on your Youngtimer.