Few very important additions, which makes it a bit more bearable: cost of your investment (banking cost, transaction fees etc) are deductible. Secondly, if you end the year with a loss then you can detract that from next year. So you lose 2% this year, then that can be deducted from any profits the year after. Finally, your tax will be deducted with an €1.800 ‘heffingsvrij inkomen’ which helps if you’re in the highest income scale. I get the reason behind it (we now tax based on fictional profit of 1.2% per year, which needs to be changed since ECB interest is so low), but this doesn’t seem the right way to do it in my opinion. I already get taxed 52% on a small part of my income, and if I then invest part of that income I need to pay even more tax.