Tax authorities file biggest fraud complaint ever

The special investigations squad (ISI) of the federal tax authority has filed the biggest complaint in Belgian tax history. The complaint covers all cases of fiscal amnesty dealt with between 2004 and 2015, a total of 61,546 cases worth €36 billion.

Fiscal amnesty was a technique used by the government to get people who had money hidden abroad in foreign accounts to bring their savings back to Belgium on payment of an agreed rate of tax. This allowed them the ability to bring the money back but avoid prosecution for tax dodging.

However, ISI claimed that the tax was not paid on the whole amount of the money being repatriated, but only on the interest the black capital had accrued. As a result, in the first amnesty of 2004, only 8.7% tax was paid on the money brought back into the country. From 2006 to 2013, the rate varied between 4.5% and 7.3%, it estimated.

A spokesperson for federal finance minister Johan Van Overtveldt said that all of the cases concerned were handled according to the law, which meant some 26,000 cases could not be dealt with. The ministry declined to speculate on the sums involved.

A spokesperson for the federal prosecutor’s office said it would study the complaint to decide how to proceed.

Photo: Ingimage