Expertise sharing

You are an entrepreneur. Not that you have something to hide, but you can’t help feel uneasy whenever you are subject to a tax audit. On the other hand, you know all too well that ‘being compliant’ and the corresponding verification of such compliance is an inevitable part of doing business. And when Big Brother – what a modern government has become – carries out an audit, it is simply inconvenient. That must be accepted.

25 years ago almost to the day, the ‘new’ tax dispute resolution legislation was enacted with the acts of 15 and 27 March 1999. It was a major reform. It put a definitive end to the jurisdictional function of the objection stage.

We need to talk about withholding tax. As natural persons, we all pay taxes on our professional income. The personal income tax is settled for each calendar year. You declare your income in the middle of the calendar year following the one in which you received that income

Didactics dictates that before discussing a superlative form, the basic form should first be explained. The best thing, therefore, is to start with the concept of ‘legistic negationism’, which is not included in the Oxford dictionary. ‘Negationism’, which is included, stands for the denial or extreme minimisation of generally accepted historical events. In Dutch, the term ‘formal legistics’ is synonymous with ‘legislative technique’.

Want to know how legal privilege is organised in 21 countries besides your own? This is complied in the book "legal privilege (un)covered".

Thirty years ago, when I came to the bar as an intern, I was able to experience it. The judiciary was not gentle with the executive at the time. This was even the case in tax matters. If the tax administration violated a procedural rule, that would be disastrous. A tax assessment that was not established according to the rules of the law  ̶  and art  ̶  was invariably annulled. But things also went further than that

There once was an entrepreneur. No, this is not the start of a fairy tale, but of my career thirty years ago. That entrepreneur was being swindled by one of his employees, but he didn't take it lying down. He ingeniously set up a system of checks to catch the thief and prove the theft. This did not happen overnight, however

It couldn’t be drier. The last paragraph of page 53 of the coalition agreement of Belgium’s so-called ‘Vivaldi’ government reads: “The possibility of tax regularisation will be discontinued as of 31 December 2023.” Back in 2020, that seemed a long way off. But in just under six months, it will become a reality. The possibility of tax forgiveness, subject to a fair yet substantial settlement, will disappear.

We are stricter for entrepreneurs than for politicians. Column Jan Tuerlinckx in Trends May 18 2023.

Two weeks ago, Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem (Christian Democratic and Flemish party) presented his proposal for the first phase of a broad fiscal reform. It is rather ambitious.

Suppose – purely hypothetically – that you drove much too fast. And to make matters worse, you also got caught on a speed camera. Then, you will of course face a criminal penalty. However, if you do not agree with the amicable settlement offered to you, you will continue to enjoy the presumption of innocence, until a judge convicts you definitively of that offence. It is important for a sentence to only be enforceable once the judiciary has made its final ruling. In other words, after you have defended yourself in all objectivity before an independent and impartial court.

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Sand pits and penalties. Column Trends

Defining a strategy is not an easy task for a company. It must first set a mission, a vision and a goal. Critical success factors, abbreviated as CSFs, are the key elements to achieve that goal. CSFs are closely intertwined with the mission and strategic objectives

Everything was hunky-dory until the last quarter of 2021. Then, energy prices shot through the roof, with all the ensuing consequences for purchasing power. Everyone's energy bill went up. Or, almost everyone's.

Ask a business consultant how he would describe the last quarter of a calendar year. Bet he’ll answer something like “hectic”. Every year, whether the exemption from capital gains on shares will be maintained is a main cause of concern for entrepreneurs and business leaders.

Come the end of September, days and nights are of equal length for the second time in the year. It’s the equinox. Then darkness sets in earlier and earlier each day. This darkness provides insight into the economy. It tells you which companies are still working late at night: the lights are still on for bookkeepers, accountants and tax consultants who are filing tax returns. Even at weekends, their lights are still burning during that period, although this is less noticeable.

The withholding tax system keeps the country on course. As long as the proceeds from this tax increase, the Minister of Finance will not lose sleep over the state of affairs at the Federal Public Service Finance.” The comment of a trade union leader about the tax authorities. Withholding tax is the beating heart of our treasury. Every month, it provides the necessary liquidity, straight from the pockets of Belgium’s wage earners. Law philosophers who venture into taxation praise payroll tax – and withholding taxes in general – as an efficient way to collect tax, and rightly so.

A panic-stricken aide bursts in, interrupting a government meeting. Gasping for breath, he stammers that a wind of discontent is blowing among the people. There is unrest and, in his opinion, it would not be unwise for their excellencies the ministers to show some token of appreciation for the people. People are suffering under the yoke of the coronavirus pandemic and the limitations and sacrifices that come with it.

This year’s Chief Technology Officer of the Year award does not go to a person, but to the legion of coronaviruses. Acting as a stress test for digitization, Covid-19 has digitally catapulted a number of businesses and organisations a few light years into the future. Yet, the urge for digitization is by no means new: it has been around for almost two decades.

In a national recruitment campaign to attract new e-audit professionals, the Belgian Federal Public Service Finance noted the following: “Tax fraud is perhaps the crime in which the most creative systems are devised and used. E-auditors have a keen eye for spotting secrets and exposing the fraud hiding between bits and bytes. They are professional, creative and flexible in their job, without neglecting their private life.” These are the special forces under the Revenue’s command: e-audits.

Tax law is a matter of public policy. This is a legal doctrine which means, among other things, that tax law must be applied at all times, that it cannot be deviated from, not even by the court. The competence of everyone and everything related to it is limited to its rigorous implementation. After all, paying taxes is the cornerstone of our society.

Tax law is a matter of public policy. This is a legal doctrine which means, among other things, that tax law must be applied at all times, that it cannot be deviated from, not even by the court. The competence of everyone and everything related to it is limited to its rigorous implementation. After all, paying taxes is the cornerstone of our society.