A senior hire can turn the DGA salary from a private choice into a payroll-tax issue.
In a small BV, salary often begins as a cash conversation. What can the business afford? What should stay inside the company? How much can the owner leave in reserve without weakening the household? Those are normal questions. They become too narrow once the BV employs someone senior.
The signal has to become readable
For a DGA, the director and substantial shareholder, the customary-salary rule is not only about the amount the owner chooses to pay themselves. It also looks at what the company pays other people. That is when an employee can set the owner salary benchmark, quietly but materially.
A court case with a familiar business shape
Rechtbank Den Haag made this visible in a judgment of 24 December 2025, published by Rechtspraak in February 2026 under ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2025:27512. The case concerned payroll tax assessments for 2021, 2022 and 2023 and the customary salary of a DGA linked to an administrative office.
The inspector used the wage of the highest-paid employee at that office as the benchmark. The court accepted that approach under article 12a of the Wage Tax Act. It also held that the law does not add extra function or pay-relationship requirements to that highest-paid employee benchmark.
The BV tried to rely on its own salary research. That was not enough. The court also looked at the DGA’s long experience, roughly 60 working hours per week, and final responsibility for personnel policy, budgeting, client contact and tax filings. The additional payroll tax assessments stayed in place, along with 10 percent default penalties.
This case reads less as a surprise than as a warning against a common habit. Many owner-managed companies still treat the DGA salary as a private year-end adjustment. The court signal points in another direction. Owner pay belongs inside the wage structure of the business.
The €58,000 figure is only one anchor
For 2026, Belastingdienst guidance says the customary salary must be at least the highest of three amounts. Those are the wage from the most comparable employment relationship, the wage of the highest-paid employee at the company or a connected company, or €58,000.
That last number matters, but it is not a safe harbour by itself. If the highest-paid employee earns more, or if the most comparable employment points higher, the €58,000 figure does not end the discussion. Since 2023, the former 25 percent efficiency margin no longer applies in the ordinary current-year calculation, apart from limited transition situations.
What the signal changes
The pressure is strongest in companies where the owner pays themselves modestly for liquidity reasons while building a senior team. That motive can be sensible. The payroll-tax file still has to reconcile the facts.
Imagine a small tax-support practice. The owner pays themselves €65,000 because cash is being used for software, debt repayment and a new hire. A senior reviewer joins at €92,000 because the labour market is tight and client work needs quality control. Commercially, the hire may be right. Fiscally, it changes the conversation.
If the owner still carries final responsibility, manages clients, signs off work, sets budgets and works long weeks, the senior employee’s wage is no longer just an HR cost. It becomes a number that asks questions.
Where the cash problem starts
The sharpest part is not always the salary itself. It is the cash effect of a correction.
The 2026 payroll handbook says that if a substantial-interest holder receives less than the customary wage, the withholding agent must process the difference as wage and calculate payroll taxes on it. That applies even if the difference has not actually been paid out. For a small BV, a paper remuneration gap can become a real tax payment.
That is why the DGA salary does not sit cleanly apart from payroll, liquidity and governance. A senior pay rise in January can affect the owner salary discussion long before the December accounts are prepared. A connected company can matter too, because the highest-paid employee benchmark can include employees of connected companies.
The market is adding pressure
Wage pressure in the wider market gives this issue more weight. CBS reported that collectively agreed wages including special remuneration were 4.5 percent higher in the first quarter of 2026 than a year earlier. For private companies, the increase was 4.9 percent. For specialist business services, it was 5.7 percent.
CBS also reported that services of accountants, bookkeepers and tax consultants were 5.4 percent more expensive in the fourth quarter of 2025 than a year earlier. Those figures do not set the salary for an individual DGA. They describe the air many service businesses are breathing: skilled people cost more, prices move, and the owner’s own salary position can move with the internal wage structure.
What founders should check
Policy is heading in the same direction. In March 2026, the State Secretary told Parliament that the customary-salary scheme had been judged efficient but only partly effective. The government is looking at clearer valuation and better data analysis, not a simple generic increase of the norm amount. The weak spot is no longer only the number. It is the explanation behind the number.
A better owner review
A calmer approach starts with timing. The DGA salary should be reviewed when senior salaries are set, not after the year has already carried the cost. The same conversation should include the highest-paid people in the BV, wages in connected companies, and the owner’s actual role. It should also cover working time, final authority, client responsibility, car benefit where relevant, and the cash effect of a possible correction.
A general salary survey can help, but it rarely carries the whole story. The Belastingdienst pre-consultation checklist shows the type of facts that matter: concrete work, nature and scope, sector, company size, complexity, final decision-making authority, working time, experience, leadership role and the highest employee wage in the company or connected company.
That is practical material, not decoration. If the owner’s salary is lower than a senior employee’s salary, the business needs a clear explanation of why the employee is not the better benchmark. Scarce technical knowledge may be a real reason. Part-time ownership work may matter. A narrow owner role may also matter. The explanation has to fit the company as it actually operates.
The lesson is not that every BV owner must automatically match the highest-paid employee. That would be too flat. The lesson is that once a BV pays senior people well, the owner’s salary can no longer live in a private corner of the accounts.
For a small company, this is not a reason to avoid senior hires or to fear growth. It is a reason to price, budget and document the whole decision. The employee contract, the owner salary, the payroll tax return, the connected-company map and the cash forecast are part of one business reality.
Good governance here is not heavy. It is simply earlier. Before the pay rise is signed, before the dividend is planned, before the year-end salary correction is guessed, the owner should know which wage in the business may be speaking on their behalf.
Sources
Referenced in the article
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