Ministry of Finance (Netherlands)

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The Ministry of Finance (Ministerie van Financiën; Fin) is the Dutch ministry of finance: it is occupied with the national budget, taxation and financial economic policy, including supervision of financial markets. The current minister is Wouter Bos. He is aided by a state secretary Jan Kees de Jager.

[edit] Responsibilities

The ministry has the duty to "guard the treasury and aim for a financially sound and prosperous state of the Netherlands’" ^[1].

It is responsible for the income and expenditure of the Kingdom.
It collects the taxes and develops fiscal legislation.
It seeks to expend the budget of the government responsibly, efficiently and effectively.
It is also responsible for financial-economic policy.
It supervises the financial markets, banks and financial transfers.

[edit] Organisation

The ministry is currently headed by one ministers and one state secretary. The ministry's main office is located in the centre of the Hague at the Korte Voorhout. Since March 2006 the ministry is renovated and it is temporarily housed in the Prinessenhof. It employes almost 1,500 civil servants. The civil service is headed by a secretary general and a deputy secretary general, who head a system of four directorates general:

General Thesaury (financial economic policy)
Directorate General for the Budget
Directorate General for Fiscal Affairs
Directorate General for Taxation

It is also responsible for several decentralized services:

The agency in Amsterdam
The Tax and Customs Administration (Dutch: Belastingdienst), the Dutch revenue service, which includes the customs service and the fiscal police
Service for State Property

The ministry also owns most of the shares the Dutch government owns, which are all nationalized companies. These include

Connexxion Holding NV (33%)
Centrale Organisatie voor Radio-actief Afval (COVRA) NV (100%)
De Nederlandsche Bank NV (100%)
Koninklijke Nederlandse Munt NV (100%)
NV Nederlandse Gasunie (100%)
NV Nederlandse Spoorwegen (100%)
NOB Holding (100%)
NV Luchthaven Schiphol (75,8%)
Havenbedrijf Rotterdam (33%)
Gasterra (voorheen Gasunie T&S) (10%)
Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij NV (5,9%)

[edit] History

The ministry was founded in 1813. Since 1965 a state secretary has been appointed each formation with responsibility for taxation.

[edit] Ministers

Name	Office	Party	Prime Minister	Note(s)	Office
Wim Kok	1989-1994	PvdA	Ruud Lubbers	Deputy Prime Minister	1989-1994
Gerrit Zalm	1994-2002	VVD	Wim Kok
Hans Hoogervorst	2002-2003	VVD	Jan Peter Balkenende
Gerrit Zalm	2003-2007	VVD	Jan Peter Balkenende	Deputy Prime Minister	2003-2007
Wouter Bos	2007-	PvdA	Jan Peter Balkenende	Deputy Prime Minister	2007-