Cooperative

Entering into a partnership to join forces with other entrepreneurs or business partners can be a great idea. It offers myriad advantages, such as joint purchasing, acquiring land together, or producing goods at scale to secure more favourable pricing. In these cases, the cooperative legal structure can add real value.

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Cooperative

A cooperative is an association operating a business in which several individuals work together to achieve a shared benefit, such as collective purchasing. From a tax perspective, it is a highly flexible legal structure.

Would you like to join forces with other entrepreneurs under a single trade name and distribute profits in proportion to each member’s contribution? A cooperative makes that possible. In addition, joining or exiting the cooperative is generally easier than with other legal structures, as it often involves buying or selling membership interests rather than shares.

Another advantage of the cooperative structure is that it is not subject to dividend tax. You may also benefit from the participation exemption, as well as an additional deduction under the so-called attributable profit scheme ("verlengstukwinstregeling").

Jacqueline Rijsbergen Senior belastingadviseur

Profits in a cooperative

To ensure the success of your cooperative, it's essential to structure both its tax position and profit allocation effectively. Cooperative profit can be divided into:

Profit of the cooperative itself: This is subject to corporate income tax.
Attributable profit: This is the portion of profit assigned to the members for their contributions. This amount is deductible from the cooperative’s profit. Members are taxed individually on their share, either via corporate income tax or personal income tax, depending on their legal structure.

Together, we'll review the tax opportunities for your cooperative to ensure maximum tax efficiency for both legal entities and individuals. This is especially relevant if you are setting up a mixed cooperative with members that have different legal structures.

Converting to a B.V.

You may also consider converting the cooperative into a B.V. for financial or organisational reasons. In that case, the cooperative’s capital is converted into share capital, and members become shareholders in the new B.V. We’re happy to advise you on ensuring business continuity and optimising the tax structure for the new B.V.

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Do you have questions about setting up a cooperative or how a cooperative works? Or do you need guidance during the process? Feel free to contact us: we’re happy to help!

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Financial structure

Structure optimalisation

Old age provision entrepeneur

Cooperative

Cooperative

Profits in a cooperative

Converting to a B.V.

We'd love to meet

What would you like to know more about?

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