Proposition 51K3021

Projet de loi portant assentiment à la Convention entre le Royaume de Belgique et la République de Saint-Marin tendant à éviter la double imposition et à prévenir la fraude fiscale en matière d'impôts sur le revenu, signée à Saint-Marin le 21 décembre 2005.

General information ¶

Submitted by

The Senate

Submission date

Jan. 29, 2007

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

San Marino direct tax double taxation international agreement

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld MR FN VB

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Discussion ¶

April 19, 2007 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Are you competent in both senses of the term? The French language is wonderfully nuanced. You can be doubly competent in French.

In Dutch it is competent. You can also be incompetent. Incompetent is incompetent.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, Mr. Secretary of State, our group is somewhat surprised that this bill was approved without any critical observation by the majority parties in the Foreign Affairs Committee. However, it seems to us to be in conflict with the content of the resolution on tax havens submitted to the Chamber on 22 November 2006 by Mr. Dirk Van der Maelen, Mr. Koen T’Sijen and Mr. Camille Dieu and Mr. Karine Lalieux. The resolution was adopted on 1 February 2007.

The explanatory note to the resolution describes the concept of tax havens and refers to the view of the OECD on this subject. I now quote from the explanation given by the applicants: “According to the OECD, there are a total of 38 tax havens, of which 33 are considered cooperative. Co-operating means that they have committed to work towards greater transparency and information exchange.”

Well, San Marino is one of the 38 countries that occur on this list. In the text approved in plenary session on 1 February 2007, paragraphs B.6 and B.7 call on the Government to better protect the Belgian tax base by not concluding double tax treaties with countries identified by the OECD as tax havens, but to opt for information and exchange treaties. Therefore, a total ban on contact is not recommended, but a limitation and a concrete suggestion. This resolution was approved by a majority in this House.

With this Bill No. 3021 The new double taxation treaty between Belgium and San Marino is ratified. If we follow the reasoning of the authors of the resolution on tax havens, today a double tax treaty with a tax havens is on the vote. I think this is logical.

Mr. Willy Cortois, who, unfortunately, is not present, who is an expert on the matter, but who was not the applicant of the resolution, had a different view in the committee. He argued that only countries such as Andorra, Liberia, Liechtenstein, the Marshall Islands and Monaco could be considered tax havens.

However, this view of Mr. Willy Cortois did not coincide with the view of the presenters of the resolution. I refer, inter alia, to Mrs Lalieux’s reply to Mr Cortois. This can be found on page 33 of the report.

Mr. Cortois has no problem today. He can approve this point. That is within his line. However, there is a problem for the other members of the committee. According to the philosophy of the applicants, double tax treaties should only be concluded with countries where there is a reasonable level of tax burden. I refer to the statement of Mr Van der Maelen. He will remember his own statement. It is on page 31 of the report.

It is a happy coincidence that Secretary of State Jamar is present here today so that he can confirm his own statements. The members of the MR must also be especially careful now, because they will soon have to give their voice too. For this group it seems to me to be somewhat unclear. For the VLD there is a solution. There are still some doubts about Mr.

According to Secretary of State Jamar, the 38 OECD countries, cooperating or not cooperating, have a far too favourable tax regime compared to others. This is on page 64. So not only according to the philosophy of the applicants, but also of Secretary of State Jamar, no tax treaty can be concluded with San Marino, if I base myself on the texts.

On 1 February of this year, on the occasion of the vote on the resolution here in the House by Mr. Van der Maelen, group leader of sp.a-spirit, the following was stated, and I quote: "I am pleased to note that we in the House have found a majority for a start of policy. We will work on it after the elections, but I hope that we will be able to take some steps before the elections.”

The period will be very short, we have another session after this.

Three more.

Three sessions in one week. In other words, we have a week of sessions, I will say so. Our President points out the ⁇ high level of activity of this Chamber. We are ready to hear what steps will be taken in this direction.

On the occasion of the discussion of the resolution, we as a group have already pointed out the non-binding nature of the discussions and discussions. This is also why we abstained. Today, the presenters of the resolution are given the opportunity to prove that what they supported and approved was not non-binding. We are very curious and look forward to the voting behavior that will be adopted here tonight especially by the factions of sp.a, spirit and PS. I can tell you that our group will abstain from this draft.

Without me meddling in allegorical approaches: it is usually in the last straight line that is driven the fastest.

I listened to Mr. Dive with a lot of interest.

First, I do not know if Mr. Devlies read the title of the project but it is a treaty aimed at avoiding double taxation and preventing tax fraud. Now, what is bothering in the head of CD&V is that they have just distributed points talking about this famous resolution initiated by Mr. Van der Maelen and other colleagues, but when we had three or four sessions of the special committee "globalization", the CD&V was not present.

The CD&V can say that the Secretary of State said this or that Mr. Van der Maelen said this about such an aspect of international fraud, but I do not know what the CD&V said since, during the three sessions, he was not present, and I take mr. Van der Maelen as a witness. It’s ⁇ shocking to hear someone distribute bulletins while he wasn’t present to see how the files were defended!

Secondly, since Mr. Devlies was not present, I will tell him what came out of the analysis of this resolution with regard to the treaties on double taxation and fraud prevention.

It is easy to read a document saying anything!

We have agreed, Mr. Van der Maelen can testify that we have a balanced resolution and we have worked together to ⁇ that.

With regard to countries that are tax havens, which we condemn, is the best attitude to leave them isolated and stop talking to them or avoid double taxation while demanding them to fight fraud in return?

I ask you the question. I don’t know if the CD&V will finally be able to provide an answer instead of distributing points! I don’t know if the CD&V has understood the nuance at this level!

In any case, Mr. Van der Maelen, myself and the whole majority, we understood very well to have a balanced resolution.

As for cooperative or non-cooperative countries within the OECD and FATF, with the three rankings of these countries – I can talk to you for an hour of your intervention, Mr. Devlies – we just have a differentiated attitude. You can read all of the committee’s work. The resolution specifically emphasizes this element. by Mr. Van der Maelen could talk about this even longer than I do, since this is a case that he knows ⁇ well.

The Secretary of State has misunderstood me.

I do not support the resolution. However, the problem was that the discussions in the committee were very non-binding. We asked ourselves whether, at the time a test would occur, the resolution would indeed be complied with.

In the meantime, there have been several examples. Now there is a new example, in particular the double taxation treaty with San Marino, which clearly does not correspond to the content of the resolution. I now ask questions about the voting behavior of the proposers of the resolution.

Mr. Van der Maelen, you cannot resist it.

Mr. Speaker, I will try to explain again. I understand that it is difficult to understand it from the first time. The Secretary of State has already done it.

For someone who has not experienced the work in the committee, it is, of course, difficult to know what the members who put together the resolution actually meant.

Mr. Devlies, I will not go into detail, but San Marino belongs to a category of countries with which we considered that a double tax treaty could be concluded, provided that the country concerned cooperates to combat tax fraud.

If you have not taken the effort to read the treaty or to follow the work of the Commission on Globalization, then it might have been enough to read the title of the treaty and look at point 3 of our agenda. Mr. Devlies, in the past, preventing fraud and helping to fight fraud were not included. This is the result of our work in the committee.

Please rest assured, I will take care to ensure that the resolution is respected. There is no problem at all.

This is typical.

The treaty dates from 2005. I can hardly imagine that discussions in late 2006 and early 2007 would have influenced the 2005 texts.

In any case, the texts indicate that you would not enter into double taxation treaties with the countries concerned. However, you would conclude contracts relating to the exchange of information. However, you would not conclude double tax treaties.

I have quoted the pages of the texts. You can examine them; you can examine your own statements and the statements of your colleagues.

I would like to reassure Mr. Devlies. A lot of negotiations are underway. Some treaties have already been concluded. No treaty will get my approval in Parliament that does not comply with this resolution. However, this point 3 meets the conditions set out in the resolution and I will approve it.

Mr. Devlies, we will discuss the agreement with the United States later. This agreement is groundbreaking. After all, for the first time, an agreement has been concluded stipulating that Belgium cannot invoke bank secrecy in order to retain information requested by the other party. You can see that we are progressing.

The double tax treaty with the United States will be approved by us. You can also read this in the report. The rapporteur is present. I hope he will report later. This was stated by our group during the discussion in the Foreign Affairs Committee. This double taxation treaty does not meet the conditions of the resolution of tax havens, as approved here.

This will be a dude conversation. I consider the Chamber sufficiently informed about the two theses to be able to speak later.