A Dutch entrepreneur got into trouble with his company during the previous credit crisis. He came up with a creative solution: he asked his insurer for his accrued pension capital and temporarily transferred it to the company, with the intention of replenishing that capital as...
THESE ARE STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCES. New insights and concepts that were simmering below the surface are emerging, even in taxation. In this respect, this manifests itself in a particular form of paternalism, and this time not only in Belgium. Tax incentives have been introduced to give...
DIGITIZATION SHOULD MAKE life easier: we can do more with less effort or with less workforce. Likewise, we also equate digitization with efficiency. Presumably, it should benefit everyone, as we become more productive and a better work-life balance can be achieved. For some time now, the...
THIS IS ONE OF THE fundamental principles of our society: everyone is equal before the law. As such, it is the pillar of our democratic system. It constitutes the basis of Articles 10 and 11 of the principle of equality enshrined in the Constitution. Yet,...
‘It’s not that simple, you say? That could very well be true, but we are not blind. We can see what kind of cars your top people drive. We can see the luxury enshrined within your offices.’ Jan Tuerlinckx, partner at Tuerlinckx Tax Lawyers, addresses...
THE VAT RETURN can be quite a challenge for a business, all the more so because it has to be made once every three months or even once a month. Moreover, companies may recover VAT one time and have to pay VAT the next. It...
DATA IS FOR the economy what oil used to be. It also becomes more and more important for the fiscal control. New IT applications are supposed to help optimise that control. The amount of data collected on taxpayers is huge, and an increasing number of...
IN BELGIUM AND ABROAD, banks find themselves increasingly in trouble because they accept money that may not have been taxed fully in the past. It recently happened to KBC in the Netherlands, and to Degroof-Petercam before that. Sooner or later, however, all banks will probably...
THE BELGIAN COMPANY CODE (Wetboek van Vennootschappen en Verenigingen - WVV) came into effect last month. The possibility to contribute to a company’s capital with one’s work is one of the Code’s signature reforms. Or to put it in the terminology of the old code:...
FISCALITY INFLUENCES our behaviour. People avoid highly taxed transactions or income, preferring tax exemption and low tax solutions. The government has planned for that. But if the taxpayer is the one taking initiatives to pay as few taxes as possible, this is called tax avoidance...