We are now an accredited educational institution

Some exciting news — as of this February, the International Writers’ Collective is an audited and accredited Dutch educational institution.

Our accreditation with the CRKBO (Centraal Register Kort Beroepsonderwijs), the central register for short vocational education in the Netherlands, gives us tax exemption status and is the reason we no longer charge sales tax on our core courses and offerings.

The vast majority of our students are registering as private individuals from within the EU and so are unaffected by this change. For the few who were taking advantage of the discount offered by the VAT reclaim for businesses or who were joining us from outside the EU, we will do what we can to keep the course within their budget by giving them the opportunity to contribute their skills to the Collective in return for a discount. Please let us know if you’d like to speak about this possibility.

For a number of reasons—unsustainably small margins over the long-term; the additional financial and administrative burden that comes with being an accredited institution; no longer being able to reclaim the 21% VAT we pay on teacher fees, venue rentals, advertising, web-hosting, payment processing, etc.—we made the decision not to adjust the course prices but, based on student feedback, to reduce the class size of our in-person courses instead.

For us, this change is therefore not material in financial terms but it does give us the opportunity to showcase our now recognised high level of tuition quality and professionalism. We are also taking this opportunity to start issuing course completion certificates to our students from this term forward.

You can read more about our accreditation with the CRKBO here.