The impact of Belgian tax policy on our preferred partners for development

11.11.11 commissioned HIVA (Research Group Social and Economic Policy and Social Inclusion) and Faculty of Law (Institute of Tax Lax) of the Catholic University of Leuven to assess the impact of the Belgian tax treaties and Belgian domestic tax law on the potential tax avoidance in the relation between Belgium and its preferred partner countries for development. The report provides an up-to-date analysis of the Belgian tax system and its impact for the relations with the 14 partner countries, and to further disentangle the economic concepts that are in vogue to describe the potential risk of tax avoidance such as illicit financial flows and ‘base erosion profit shifting’ (BEPS). In a further attempt to estimate the potential risk of those flows, several statistical sources such as corporate accounts via the ORBIS database and country-by-country reporting of multinational companies, as collected by OECD, have been explored. The focus was to quantify the specific importance of the relation of Belgium with the preferred partner countries. The empirical evidence learned that all by all the importance of Belgium in the economic relations with those partner countries is relative limited, and how those relations are embodied in relations between parent companies and daughter companies. The implications about the risk of tax avoidance and tax evasion, all missed income for development, are about global development goals.

ISBN:9789088361463

Jaar van publicatie:2023

Toegankelijkheid:Closed