DUTCH FINANCE minister Wouter Bos has hit back at US president Barack Obama’s plan to recoup the profits of US multinationals operating in the Netherlands, which was name-checked as a top beneficiary of US foreign earnings.

“It’s totally unjust that we’re on this list,” Mr Bos said yesterday after a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels. “Our main aim now is to remove any suggestion that we are a tax haven. The Netherlands have always been totally transparent and fair.”

Ireland and Bermuda were also mentioned as beneficiaries in a briefing note accompanying the plan. All three countries have lower tax rates than the US, but only Bermuda, which has a nil rate on foreign earnings, is listed as a tax haven by the OECD.

Dutch junior minister for tax affairs Jan Kees de Jager said he would be asking the Americans for clarification on the list, and said he felt “ambushed” by it.

Czech finance minister Miroslav Kalousek said he wasn’t aware of the details of the American plan, but added: “It is in the interests of all of us to have a co-ordinated approach to non-co-operative jurisdictions, but I hope it is a really correct and serious approach, devoid of any sort of vain effects.”

The Dutch government is not planning to change its tax infrastructure over the rift.

Separately, Mr Kalousek said EU countries were no closer to agreeing a co-ordinated strategy on how to get out of debt.

The European Commission on Monday predicted the bloc’s deficit would double to 6 per cent of GDP this year.

The figure has been inflated by budgetary problems in Ireland, the UK and Latvia, which have the top three shortfalls in the 27-member EU.

Speaking after the Ecofin meeting yesterday, Mr Kalousek said that although all EU members are aware of the need to return to normal spending patterns, he said there was “no common schedule” for it.