Belgium: Reporting requirements, with publication of FATCA implementing law

Legislation that enacts, as part of Belgian domestic law, the FATCA reporting provisions pursuant to an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) with the United States has been long-awaited. The Belgian tax authorities initially set a FATCA reporting deadline of 30 July 2015. However, without a law transposing the FATCA rules into Belgian law, this deadline was not met. Publication of the law in the official gazette has been expected before the end of 2015.

Belgian financial institutions are to report the FATCA information for 2014 to the Belgian tax authorities 10 days following the publication of the law in the official gazette. On the FATCA portal of the Belgian tax authorities, it is stated that the 10-day period will be interpreted in a flexible manner meaning that, in practice, financial institutions would have one month as from the date of publication to report the 2014 FATCA information to the Belgian tax authorities.

Correspondingly, the initial deadline for the Belgian tax authorities to exchange this information with the IRS has been delayed from 30 September 2015 to 30 September 2016.

Read a December 2015 report prepared by the KPMG member firm in Belgium: FATCA – Law implementing Belgian FATCA-IGA