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48 • Fifty Shades of Tax Dodging With Rwanda, Bermuda and Turkey, Belgium did finalise negotiations aimed at aligning existing tax treaties to include information exchange based on the OECD model convention. 320 This was clearly a good step, but it also represented a missed opportunity to debate Belgium’s tax treaty policy more broadly, taking into account the need for an idependent spillover analysis of current tax treaties on developing countries’ tax base. Financial and corporate transparency Financial and corporate transparency is absent in the new government’s coalition agreement. 321 Although Finance Minister Johan Van Overtveldt (Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie (N-VA)) emphasises that transparency is a key priority, 322 the level of ambition from the Belgian government on this front seems to be limited. Public reporting for multinational corporations Belgium has implemented the EU provision for public country by country reporting for the financial sector. 323 Belgium has not yet defined its position on country by country reporting for all sectors. 324 Instead it is waiting for the results of the EU impact assessment of country by country reporting and plans to carry out its own assessment to see what this would mean for the national tax administration. The main concerns for the government seem to be additional administrative burdens and costs for companies. According to the global audit firm EY, it is expected that Belgium will implement country by country reporting along the lines of the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) recommendation, 325 which seems to support the impression of civil society: that the government prefers this option with its confidential reporting format. Based on information provided by the relevant authorities, many aspects with regard to the implementation of the new EU anti-money laundering directive remain undecided. This is particularly the case on the question of public access to the register of beneficial ownership information, which according to the officials depend on “whether this is considered OK from a privacy law perspective”, and that it “still needs to be debated and legally analysed”. 328 A task force on the implementation of the directive deciding on these issues is yet to be set up. 329 On a more positive note, however, there seems to be a clear commitment to a register that will be technically as accessible and user friendly as possible (online, in English, easily searchable and Excel exportable). 330 EU solutions Belgium is rarely a first mover on tax and transparency issues at the EU level, as demonstrated by its lack of firm positons on beneficial ownership transparency and public country by country reporting. However, the government does want to be seen as a loyal partner in implementing common regulations. Belgium supports the Commission’s proposal for a directive on the automatic exchange of tax rulings and in June 2015, announced that it will start exchanging its tax rulings already from October 2015. 331 The Finance Minister has stated that Belgium is less supportive of tax harmonisation than of coordination in the EU, and also that the government supports the Commission’s plans to revive the proposal for a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base in the EU (the so-called CCCTB proposal). 332 Ownership transparency A review of Belgium’s anti-money laundering framework by the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in early 2015 noted considerable shortcomings. However, in general it assessed Belgium to be compliant with standards related to transparency and beneficial ownership information registration. 326 Trusts cannot be created under Belgian law. 321
Fifty Shades of Tax Dodging • 49 Global solutions The Belgian Policy Coherence for Development framework does not explicitly mention tax as one of its priorities, but Development Minister Alexander De Croo sees the issue as an important aspect of policy coherence for development. 333 Following the Financing for Development summit in July 2015 in Addis Ababa, Belgium joined the so-called Addis Tax Initiative 334 and included the IMF administered Tax Policy and Administration Topical Trust Fund as one of its multilateral development partners. 335 However, there is a sense among civil society that these developments have not yet resulted in stronger actual coordination between the Ministry of Finance and Belgium’s development ministry. The Belgian position in Addis Ababa following the EU line on the issue of the intergovernmental tax body was disappointing and there is virtually no interest in carrying out spillover analysis of Belgian tax policies on third countries, such as the impact of tax treaties on developing countries. 336 Conclusion Tax justice remains a contentious issue as far as Belgian public debate is concerned. Current reform within the framework of the so-called tax shift leaves calls for a fair sharing of the tax burden unanswered. In the meantime, Belgium maintains its international tax policy based on particular tax schemes that are designed to attract investment in certain sectors with high added value. There is a broad consensus in government that a small, open economy is better off without a more harmonised tax system at the EU level that would create a level playing field for all EU businesses and citizens. This ‘fiscal particularism’ – such as the Belgian patent box and other schemes – reduces the corporate tax burden from the official rate of 33.99 per cent to 17 per cent. 337 This policy doctrine explains to a large extent the wait-and-see attitude at the EU level and in other international fora where measures to combat tax dodging and increase transparency are discussed.
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