The so-called “Super nota” of Bart De Wever’s contained a variety of proposed tax measures that would bring significant changes to the existing tax system. While the Super nota seems currently “in the fridge”, the budgetary situation of the country makes it likely that one or more of the measures in the Super nota will revive in the final government agreement.
Please keep in mind that as political discussions are not final, the proposed measures may be subject to change based on future negotiations. It is also important to mention that it cannot be excluded that, depending on the negotiations, a number of the proposed measures could be implemented as early as assessment year 2025, which corresponds to FY24 for companies with a financial year corresponding to the calendar year.
In a newsflash of 17 September, we discussed what was on the table for PEs. Today we discuss the possible impact for family business. For impacts on the corporations, we refer to our upcoming newsflash: impact on corporations
What is on the table
These potential tax reforms could impact the family businesses at various levels:
At management level
- There are discussions around a lowering and harmonisation of (withholding) tax rate for investment income (also relevant for the family).
- An abolition of the VVPRbis regime is being discussed which would increase the tax burden for family businesses.
- The minimum remuneration to benefit from a lower corporate tax rate would increase to 50k€ annually, subject to indexation and obligation to pay in cash
- The proposed reform tackles the taxation of capital gains on shares – see below.
At entrepreneur / family level
- There are discussions on revising the current tax on real estate capital gains. However, it is not yet clear what the revision would entail.
- The proposed reform tackles the taxation of capital gains on shares:
- A capital gains tax of 10% (but with certain safeguards for historical capital gains and de minimis amount for historic and active shareholder holding more than 5%) – in order to apply these safeguards some preventative measures could be envisaged (e.g. already obtaining a valuation of the shares)
- A clarification of the concept of “abnormal management of private estate” especially in the framework of so-called “internal capital gains”, which is a difficult topic to assess the tax treatment of capital gains on shares in deal making when sellers are private individuals – this would be a welcome measure to reinforce legal certainty.
- A broad ‘tax basket’ is being proposed for all movable income, regardless of origin or form of investment. This enables taxpayers to benefit from an exemption on a fixed amount of movable income.
This contribution was realised in collaboration with Sarah Van Leynseele, Christophe Rapoye and Marjolein De Jonge.
