Given that most of them don't stay for even five years[0], how does their temporary presence benefit society?
[0] "80% of expat employees use the facility for 5 years or less" https://www.government.nl/topics/income-tax/shortening-30-pe...
Someone who stays a few years at the peak of above average earnings might well be highly economically beneficial even at a steep tax discount.
I don't think governments ought to compete on tax in general, but this is one where it might both be a net benefit and there is the arguable case that most tax systems are geared towards people in working age overpaying to compensate for the cost of caring for children and the elderly.
Someone who comes temporarily during working age without a discount will get the downside without the benefit.
This will be a bigger problem for the competitive ability in places with comprehensive social support mechanisms.
Given dropping birth rates, trying to offset that to be an attractive place to immigrate to may well be worth it even if most leave again - especially as long as it's profitable too.
But if your concern is that it doesn't attract people who will stay, maybe there are ways to incentivise that too. E.g. let people earn a discount where a portion does not pay out unless they stay longer.
Now, if they stay permanently, you will have to pay their pensions and healthcare, which are very expensive.
That is one possibility.
Another is that the foreigner may have got the job instead of it going to a local. It's also possible that as a result of that the local may be unemployed and hence costing the country money.
I also believe that the economy is not a zero sum game where there is a finite number of jobs. If the Netherlands suddenly absorbed 20k Silicon Valley workers, they would not simply replace 20k local workers. One of them might even create a company that ends up employing that amount of people.
The birth rate is falling and well below replacement level already, and talent shortages are well-known to be a problem. It's too late to worry about protecting the jobs of locals.
What does one offer to locals to show them that they matter? Remember that all locals - even if they are poor or unemployed - have a vote.
If one washes one's hands of an entire group one should not be surprised the next time an election comes round if the outcome is a form of protest.
The question we should ask is whether this is rational or not. I think not. If the Dutch want to vote themselves into a Brexit, then so be it - the foreigners will go elsewhere, trade barriers will be erected to "protect" the local economy, and time will tell who will be ahead economically and culturally.
Well, the very opposite of that happened in the UK regarding the Brexit referendum:
"More than 50 per cent of the population growth in Lincolnshire in the last decade has been caused by immigration. Across the county, population growth has been 57,999, with 30,568 due to immigration - a total of 52.7 per cent."
https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/local-news/new-figur...
"More than three quarters of the people of Boston, in the county of Lincolnshire in the East Midlands of England, voted to leave the EU. According to the most recent U.K. census in 2011, Boston also has the highest proportion of eastern European immigrants of anywhere in the U.K., after an influx of EU workers to the area’s agricultural sector, earning it the label of Britain’s “most divided town.” Between 2004 and 2014, the town’s migrant population grew by 460%, and the proportion of residents of the Borough of Boston born in EU accession countries such as Lithuania, Poland and Latvia, stands at around 12%."
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/28/in-boston-britains-most-pro-...
> The question we should ask is whether this is rational or not.
To vote a particular way in the hope of change? Why wouldn't that be rational?
> To vote a particular way in the hope of change? Why wouldn't that be rational?
There are plenty of historical examples of people voting for "change" that ended up backfiring wildly. I think you could find quite a few of those in the same ideological spectrum of people like Wilders.
And plenty of locals will go elsewhere too. I for one. The morons that effected Brexit should be enough of an example that any other EU country that wants to go the same route has been amply warned about what that will do your country. It's amazing that so many people are utterly blind but then again, live long enough and nothing really surprises you any more.