‘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...
'Conflict of interest’ is the predominant theme in the public political debate. Contrary to what you might think, there are apparently no clear rules. Even eminent professors who should know as legal theorists and as expert practitioners only talk about common practice, and therefore not...
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...
I hope that you, like me, take the above for granted. Indeed, this is inherent to the rule of law and the fundamental rights of the individual. Unfortunately, these essential principles do not hold true in taxation. If you file an incorrect tax return – again...
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...
KPIs, or key performance indicators, are an instrument used to measure and monitor how effectively an organisation is achieving its objectives. The choice of KPIs in a strategic plan is a tricky business. They are seen as the operational milestones by which to carry out the...
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...