The tax authorities can access the balance of your bank account
March 2021 – Since 2014, banks must communicate to the Central Point of Contact or "CPC" the names of all those who hold an account with Belgian banks. This allows the tax authorities to be informed of a taxpayer's accounts in the context of an investigation by sending a single request to the CPC. The balance did not have to be communicated. But this changed on 1 January 2021.
The CPC
The Central Point of Contact (CPC) is part of the National Bank. Since 2014, all Belgian financial institutions are obliged to declare to the CPC the identity of their customers as well as the numbers of their accounts and contracts.
If the tax authorities have indications of tax fraud, they can request this information about the taxpayer in question from the CPC. In this respect, the tax authorities must comply with Article 322, § 3 of the CIR92.
In such a situation, the tax authorities would previously have to contact virtually all financial institutions to find out whether the taxpayer had an account. The new regulation has therefore resulted in a significant saving of time and effort.
However, the tax authorities could not ask the CPC for information on the balance of the accounts in question, as the CPC simply did not have this information.
Now also the balances
The principle had been announced in the government agreement and is now enshrined in a law for the end of 2020: the balances of Belgian bank accounts must now be communicated to the CPC.
Financial institutions are required to communicate to the CPC the periodic balance of bank and payment accounts as well as the aggregate amount of a set of explicitly referred contracts.
The tax authorities may then consult these data with the CPC, in accordance with Article 322, § 3 of the CIR92 and Article 75 of the Code for the amicable and forced recovery of tax and non-tax debts, in the context of debt collection.
However, it may also consult them in the context of taxation for the purpose of checking the tax due (not only income tax, but also taxes assimilated to income tax and VAT).
However, the tax authorities cannot access these data as they see fit. He must have carried out prior investigations.
In practice
The practical implementation of this change in the law needs to be finalised. A Royal Decree has yet to determine the periodicity at which data must be communicated and the amounts from which the obligation to communicate must be activated.
In concrete terms, this means that if the balance of an account or the aggregate amount of certain contracts remains below this amount, the information does not have to be communicated.
On the other hand, if the minimum amount has been exceeded between two captures of information, the bank will still have to communicate the balance to the CPC at the time of the next capture of information.
In addition, if the minimum amount has been exceeded during one capture of information, not only the balance at that time, but also the balance at the time of the next capture of information, regardless of the amount, must be reported.
Entry into force
The rules concerning the communication of balances and the possibility of consulting them via the CPC came into force on 31 December 2020. However, the first communication of balances and amounts for the years 2020 and 2021 will have to be made no later than 31 January 2022. At the request of the NBB, the government may bring this deadline forward or postpone it by a maximum of six months.
For the years 2022 and thereafter, the periodicity will be set at a later date in a Royal Decree.
