The Dutch Government has announced its intention to bring Cooperative Associations (Coops) within the scope of the Dutch Dividend Withholding Tax Act. The good news for taxpayers using such entities is that the proposed Bill only deals with ‘’abusive’’ Coops. This means that, in practice, not all Coop situations will have to be restructured. The bad news is that the new definition of ‘’abusive Coop’’ is not very clear and may even cover situations which so far have never been considered to be abusive. This could result in a large number of grey areas where tax payers who think they should be above board may have their Coop structure abusive. All taxpayers using Dutch Coops should therefore take a closer look and decide whether to retain the status quo, make some adjustments to their structures in line with the new rules or shift to another form of tax planning.