Belgian 2017 tax reform

Belgian 2017 tax reform

In July 2017, the Belgian federal government came to an agreement on the tax reform. Among other things, the agreement contains:

  • a reduction of the nominal corporate tax rate;
  • an expansion of the subscription tax to directly held security accounts;
  • a new increase of the tax on stock exchange transactions;
  • a withholding tax on the reimbursement of share capital;
  • ​an expansion of the look-through tax

The government has decided not to implement a general capital gains tax, nor an exit tax.

The measures still need to be submitted in the form of preliminary designs of law for the Council of State before they can be submitted to the Parliament for discussion and voting. The effective date for these measures has been spread out between 1 January 2018 and 2020.