Belgian businesses transferred 275 billion euros to tax havens in 2014. This is reported in De Standaard on Friday. Luxembourg was the greatest beneficiary of this taxing phenomenon with 62.6 billion euros. It is followed by the United Arab Emirates (20.1 milliards), the Cayman Islands (7.5 billion), Dubai (2.1 billion) and Bermuda (1.8 billion).
No less than 1,614 taxpayers indicated to the Belgian tax authorities that combined they transferred some 274.7 billion euros to tax havens. This is evident from a response given by the Minister of Finances, Johan Van Overtveldt (New Flemish Alliance) to a parliamentary question.
A law passed in 2010 states that businesses transferring more than 100,000 euros to a tax haven are obliged to notify the tax authorities. Indeed, it is not actually a criminal offence to undertake financial arrangements with such countries.
Such tax havens are characterized by a very low level of tax or even no tax or by insufficient cooperation in the sharing of tax data.
That is a reason why Luxembourg had originally ended up on this list of countries. The Grand Duchy has since been removed from this and from 2015 it is not compulsory to indicate significant transfers to this state.
(Source: Belga)
