Canadutch
I’ve come to love the website www.Expatica.com because it makes me feel like my sometimes negative feelings towards live in the Netherlands aren’t completely without foundation. I just read another interesting article about a poll done on expats and their feelings about living in NL.
I appear to fit in among the 15% of foreigners in NL…. that % of people claimed the following:
Another 15 percent (80 people) indicated they wanted to leave the Netherlands but could not. Being in a good relationship or contractual commitments appear to be the main reasons why these expats feel they can’t leave.
“I can’t think of a good reason why anyone would want to stay here if their partner isn’t here,” one respondent wrote in the comment section.
Once again the theme pops up of people not liking the Netherlands but trying to find some way to cope because they are in love with a cloggie.
The funniest part was how many people want to stay in NL because of the great benefits for expats…. a whole 1%.
Interestingly, only 1 percent (6 votes) want to stay because of the “great benefits” some expats receive. These benefits include the 30 percent tax ruling for expats recruited to positions no Dutch candidates are qualified to fill.
This 30 percent tax ruling is also the one that makes Americans and Canadians able to just trade in their drivers license for a Dutch one rather than having to do the lessons and exams like everyone else. Like being recruited by a Dutch company makes them any more capable a driver than anyone else who comes here, what a crock of shit.
There was another article on there today called Is The Netherlands Expat Friendly?. That made for some interesting reading as well, though I didn’t quite agree with some comments made. For example one person stated in the article that one of the reasons they didn’t like the Netherlands was because they had “legalised killing called euthanasia…”. That’s actually one of the things I DO like about this country.
Maybe this is part of the reason why the Dutch are getting fed up with foreigners though, and who could blame them really…
