PHILIPSBURG--Tax specialist Marco Aalbers, founder of Aalbers Private Tax Advisory, has published The Tax System of Sint Maarten: Principles, Practice and International Context. The first edition is written in English and is now on sale at Van Dorp in Simpson Bay.
Sint Maarten's tax legislation is written mainly in Dutch. Many people who live, invest or do business on the island find the rules hard to read and even harder to apply. The book is meant to close that gap. It explains the local tax system in plain English and reflects the legislation in force in 2026.
The guide covers the main taxes on the island: income tax, profit tax, wage tax, turnover tax and social premiums. It also looks at Sint Maarten's tax arrangements within the Kingdom of the Netherlands and places the system in its wider international context. Each topic starts with the underlying principles and then moves on to how the rules work in practice.
The book is written primarily for business owners, investors and people relocating to Sint Maarten. It also serves as a reference for accountants, lawyers, notaries, bankers, real estate agents and students.
According to Aalbers, everyone who does business on the island has to deal with the local tax rules, yet for many of them the law itself is difficult to access. He has worked with the system for years, first as a tax inspector with the Sint Maarten Tax Administration and later as an advisor at PwC Dutch Caribbean. He wrote the book the way he explains tax matters to his clients: step by step, in plain language and with examples from practice.
Aalbers is co-author of Capita Selecta Caribisch Fiscaal Recht, contributes to the Wolters Kluwer Vakstudie series and lectures in Caribbean tax law at the University of Curaçao. He also publishes an annual English-language edition of Sint Maarten's tax legislation and writes the free weekly Caribbean Tax Update, which readers can subscribe to at aalbersprivatetaxadvisory.com/tax-update.
The Tax System of Sint Maarten is available at Van Dorp in Simpson Bay.