The cabinet is looking into ways of cutting the amount of tax paid by people whose assets are primarily in the form of savings, tax minister Menno Snel has told MPs.

The government currently uses ‘fictitious interest rates’ of upwards of 2% to decide how much income people have from their assets, and levies tax of 30% on that amount.

Currently, most savings accounts have interest rates of around zero and people are paying tax on income they don’t have. Snel told MPs he wants to try to remedy this.

One option would be to levy tax based on the actual interest earned on savings, while continuing to tax property and other investments at the fictitious rates, Snel told MPs.

Snel says he hopes to present the plans to parliament along with the rest of the budget in September.