Belgium urged to rein in tax evaders

The Belgium government has been told it is not doing enough to clamp down on tax evaders and money launderers, and now is the time to take action. Leading the way is the Attorney General at the Court of Appeal in Brussels, Lucien Nouwynck (pictured above), who says that more must be done to get a handle on the problem.

Nouwynck has pointed the finger at a lack of resources and a general unwillingness by government officials to tackle a problem he says is getting out of hand. He has challenged the government to make tax evasion a priority, which up until now has been treated with lackluster efforts.

He claims that only minor evasion cases are being dealt with, instead of major incidences that are seeing potential tax revenues remain out of Belgium’s hands. As part of tax fraud reforms brought into effect in 2012, it is the responsibility of the judiciary to pursue large tax fraud cases. However, due to a lack of specialist knowhow and heavy workload, many tax evasion cases are left untouched and exceed the statute of limitations. These problems have also reportedly resulted in some 555 tax fraud files left sitting under investigation for five years.