NETHERLANDS - The Dutch Association of Insurers has again demanded that the Dutch government delay the implementation of tax changes to pre-pension and levensloop, or life course scheme, to 1 January 2007.

It said that if the proposals were implemented on 1 January 2006 as planned, employers would come under time pressure and that smaller companies would not be able to implement the proposals on time.

It also noted that more than 30,000 employers are currently negotiating new collective agreements (CAOs) with their employees and that additional constraints arose from a new labour and work incapacity law (WIA) whose impact on pensions had not yet been clarified.

It added that most insurers and smaller pension funds expected total chaos in the coming months.

The association coupled the call with an article welcoming proposed changes to the Law Financial Supervision (Wft) and saying that it expected the coming into force of the measure to be delayed to 1 July 2006.

The Wft is the final part of a new financial supervision structure for financial institutions, which imposes a separation between prudential supervision and operational supervision.

Its delay follows criticism from the Council of State, parliament and the insurers’ association.

According to Ron Batten, the association’s policy consultant, the measure meant that “all financial institutions will have to sift through the law to see which respective parts will be relevant to them in particular.”

The Council of State stated in April that the proposal was complex and hard to access.

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