The cost of lawyers’ fees should be tax deductible for employees who take legal action when sacked, says a member of the Judiciary Council (Hoge Raad) in Tuesday’s Financieele Dagblad.

If the Council accepts the recommendation made in five recent cases, employees will once again be able to declare legal costs as tax deductible as they could until 2001 when the tax system was changed.
Petra Charbon of the labour lawyers association told the paper that making legal costs tax deductible is ‘very important’ to clients who can face bills of up to €10,000 when taking their employer to court.