Belgian Authorities Probe Residents’ Luxembourg Bank Accounts

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

16 September 2005

Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders has told a national newspaper that several hundred Belgian citizens are under investigation by the tax authorities in relation to money held in bank accounts based in neighbouring Luxembourg.

The minister told newspaper La Libre Belgique on Wednesday that around 650 Belgian residents with bank accounts in Luxembourg had been tracked down as a result of phone calls they had made to one particular bank, the name of which remains undisclosed.

The authorities managed to obtain the names of the 650 in question after a court order compelled telecom provider Belgacom to provide a list of individuals who had contacted the bank's freephone number between 2001 and 2003. It is alleged by the government that the names that appeared on the list were attempting to hide assets from the Belgian tax man.

The investigation is the first major action by the Belgian government to recover tax revenues from undeclared bank accounts since a one year long amnesty scheme closed in January.

According to the government, the amnesty, which allowed citizens to disclose their previously undeclared assets held abroad without facing criminal sanctions in return for paying a tax of between 6% and 9% on the funds, eventually saw EUR500 million return from foreign accounts.

While the amount was considerably lower than the EUR850 million projected by the government at the start of the amnesty, it was nevertheless better than the finance ministry expected after a lack of initial interest produced poor returns for the scheme.

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