The conversation begins with a deep sigh. “It is just incomprehensible,” says independent beautician Els van Meenen (59). Despite optimistic sounds about the end of the pandemic in the summer, the cabinet introduced another lockdown in December. Van Meenen now had to close her business for four weeks. “We have been closed for a total of about twenty weeks, with minimal compensation. That feels so unfair.”
The last time Van Meenen met NRC spoke, last September, her piggy bank, which had been carefully built up over six years, was empty after a year and a half of pandemic. The buffer that she managed to build up again in the following months has been absorbed in the most recent lockdown. She received no financial support from the government. Calculated over a whole month, she had too much turnover for that. “You’re missing four full weeks of income, but because it’s spread over two different months, my income wasn’t low enough to get support.”
Financial support packages that had just been abolished, such as the NOW scheme to continue paying employees’ salaries and the allowance for fixed costs, returned after a few weeks of absence with the lockdown in December. But the TOZO, corona support for independent entrepreneurs – the Netherlands counted in 2020 according to the Central Bureau of Statistics more than 1.1 million – was not given a new lease of life. Not necessary, the cabinet said. December’s situation would not have been comparable after two years of pandemic the period in 2020 when the TOZO was introduced.
Instead, the conditions for the social assistance scheme for the self-employed (Bbz) have been relaxed, the arrangement under which a self-employed person can apply for social assistance – just under EUR 1,100 per month – from the municipality. Municipalities no longer have to check the assets of the self-employed due to the relaxed application. However, unlike the TOZO, the social assistance scheme includes a viability test: an independent entrepreneur must be able to demonstrate that his or her company generates enough income to be able to continue to exist.
Sorting out documents
That is problematic, says Cristel van de Ven, chairman of the Dutch Self-Employed Association, the umbrella organization of trade associations that represents the interests of self-employed workers in all kinds of sectors. “At the TOZO, an entrepreneur had to be able to demonstrate that he or she had less income than usual due to the corona measures. That is quite different from proving whether you are viable as a company.”
In order to be able to test this viability, says Van de Ven, municipalities have a lot of room to determine which data from entrepreneurs they request – the rules are not determined nationally. “Some municipalities request a lot of documents, from annual accounts from many years back or statements from customers, to statements of all the accounts someone had between certain years.” says Van de Ven. “Not only does this cost entrepreneurs a lot of time in an already difficult period, but it also takes a long time to sort out all those documents – which means that the assessment of applications takes a long time and entrepreneurs have to wait for their assessment and money.”
Also read: How you end up in debt as a self-employed person due to the TOZO scheme
In addition, entrepreneurs have to cross a threshold to apply for the Bbz, says Van de Ven. “There is a lot of shame among the self-employed to go on welfare. That is mentally and emotionally of a completely different order than the TOZO. I hear from many members that they therefore do not apply for assistance. We encourage members to apply for support, whatever the scheme is called.”
In addition, as with the TOZO scheme, the income of a partner counts when determining the social assistance benefit for the self-employed. If he/she earns more than the minimum wage, the self-employed person will not receive any social assistance benefits.
No business at home
Ronald Gijsbertsen, director of the Kunstenbond, a trade union for all workers in the creative sector, sees that many freelancers in his sector are not eligible for social assistance because of this partner rule. They also often go wrong with the allowance for fixed costs: a condition for this is that the company may not be established at a home address, while many self-employed people work from home.
“We regularly have crying members on the phone who no longer know where they can get support,” says Gijsbertsen. The main complaint of freelancers in his sector – according to the Central Bureau of Statistics was that there were in 2019 more than 140,000 – is that they are not treated equally as other workers in the Netherlands. “Where there is corona support for companies, obstacles have been maintained for the self-employed to be able to apply for financial aid.”
One of those affected entrepreneurs is independent lighting designer Coen van der Hoeven (57). He is a lighting designer for stage performances, musicals and museums – work that has come to a standstill due to the lockdowns that have been in place for the past two years. Van der Hoeven is the main breadwinner for his family – wife and two children. He saw his monthly turnover fall from around 6,000 euros to almost nothing during the lockdown weeks.
“My wife’s salary was mainly intended to supplement mine. She earns around 1,300 euros per month. But because of that I couldn’t apply for social assistance – we were already close to the social minimum with her salary,” says Van der Hoeven. “While our lifestyle is not at welfare level. The rent of our house alone is 1,200 euros per month.”
Van der Hoeven’s piggy banks are now also empty. He took a different approach and applied for various salaried jobs, such as a lighting technician at an MBO school. “I have sent six or seven letters, but have not even been invited for an interview. In fact, I don’t want to do anything else at all. I’ve been doing this job for 35 years, I’m good at it and in normal times I earn good money.”
The fact that the self-employed are treated differently than people in paid employment (who continue to be paid through the NOW scheme if their work is lost) is a pain point for Van der Hoeven. “I have always paid taxes properly. Why are we self-employed people completely ignored?”
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of February 1, 2022
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