Proposition 54K1448

Projet de loi réglant la communication des renseignements relatifs aux comptes financiers, par les institutions financières belges et le SPF Finances, dans le cadre d'un échange automatique de renseignements au niveau international et à des fins fiscales.

General information ¶

Submitted by

MR Swedish coalition

Submission date

Nov. 13, 2015

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

EC Directive administrative cooperation banking supervision tax convention information system national implementing measure exchange of information

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR PVDA | PTB PP VB

Contact form ¶

Do you have a question or request regarding this proposition? Select the most appropriate option for your request and I will get back to you shortly.

Discussion ¶

Dec. 10, 2015 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, I have agreed with Mr. Piedboeuf, co-rapporteur, to refer to the written report.

I will speak on behalf of my group.

We look forward to seeing this issue on the agenda of today’s meeting. I would like to express my gratitude to the former Secretary of State for Combating Social and Tax Fraud. Pope Francis, for the preparatory work he has done.

The main objective of this bill is to allow the competent Belgian authority to obtain from Belgian financial institutions the transmission of information that that same authority will have to provide to the relevant foreign courts. The exchange of financial information at international level should ensure greater transparency.

This is an important text because the automated exchange of financial data at the global level is considered to be a ⁇ effective tool in the fight against international tax fraud, tax evasion and money laundering, but also in the context of the fight against terrorist financing, which is so important today. That is why we support the amendment by our colleague Dirk Van der Maelen amending Article 17 to allow data to be used as evidence to enable criminal prosecution also for terrorism or its financing, organised crime, arms and human trafficking.

I have two questions and have had the opportunity to discuss them in the committee.

The first concerns the penalties envisaged in the bill, which are far too mild compared to those envisaged in other EU Member States. They will not be sufficiently dissuasive in view, for example, of what is happening in Austria, where fines imposed on financial institutions can reach up to 200,000 euros, or in Germany, up to 50,000 euros per infringement. Therefore, we will also support all the amendments submitted to heighten the sanctions.

It is also important that financial institutions that fail to comply with the law be punished, and not just from a moral point of view to their reputation, as you said in the commission. They must be sanctioned severely enough; they could even go to withdraw permits. We will also support the amendment of our colleague Van der Maelen.

The second concern is the storage of data. Pursuant to Article 15 § 3 of the bill, the SPF Finances will keep the computerised databases communicated to the competent authority of another jurisdiction only for seven years.

As you have said, you are limiting your thinking only to the tax scope. For us, this data, which I repeat, could be of considerable help in the fight against terrorism and organised crime, should be able to be stored for longer. Therefore, we are proposing an amendment in this regard. I hope that he will get your support, given the current context.

Today, more than ever, international tax evasion is a phenomenon to be taken hand in hand and combated. At a time when international trade is reaching record levels, where states are interconnected at an unparalleled point and where the amount of financial transactions has become colossal, the fight against this plague can naturally no longer be limited to national borders. Therefore, it is time to establish automatic exchanges of information between countries for tax purposes worthy of that name, and in the interest of transparency expected by all our fellow citizens.

Over the past two years, our country has made remarkable commitments with its European and global partners in terms of fighting international tax fraud. In April 2014, a bilateral agreement was reached with the United States for the automatic exchange of financial information. A similar agreement was signed by Belgium in October 2014 as part of a joint agreement between OECD and Council of Europe. The European Directive on Exchange of Financial Information was amended in December 2014.

The bill put to vote today aims to finally endorse these three commitments in the fight against international tax fraud by transposing them into national law. More specifically, the purpose of this text is simple: to establish an automatic exchange of financial data between Belgium and foreign courts and vice versa. In this regard, it represents a real step forward for greater tax justice, both nationally and internationally.

By adopting this bill, we will therefore bring a stone to the building of international justice called to be widespread.

As we can see, this bill once again marks the clear and firm will of this government to fight tax evasion and fraud. With this project, our country will finally be able to better tax overseas account holders on their income and our administration will be able to control overseas account statements even more effectively.

Furthermore, thanks to this tax legislation, it will be easier for the tax administration to guarantee the correct application, in particular of the Caiman tax. This legislation provides Belgian tax officials with extremely effective tools to control the tax returns made in this area and to establish a fair and correct tax.

In short, this bill helps to tighten the fence around tax fraudsters.

Before I conclude, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to reassure one another about the compatibility of this project with the question of privacy. All safeguards have been taken and the Privacy Protection Commission issued a positive opinion on 1 July 2015.

The bill is therefore clear. Prior to the exchange of financial information, account holders will be informed of the data transmitted, the objectives as well as the final recipients. Therefore, it is not a matter of transferring to the utmost of all tax information. In other words, the project provides a strong framework for safeguarding the right to privacy.

In conclusion, I would like to thank all the parties, the majority and the opposition, who participated in the constructive exchanges in the committee. This resulted in a unanimous vote on the text. I therefore hope that the agreement on this project will be as broad at the final vote so that we can finally make decisive progress on this topic.

I think we all agree that the automated exchange of financial information at European and global level is now more than ever an indispensable tool in the fight against tax evasion and fraud. The aim is to generalize this struggle. With this document, we contribute to this.

Chers collègues, félicitons M. Calomne pour son maiden speech! (Applause of Applause)

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, I can say about this bill that it causes a land shift in the fiscal country. Per ⁇ I should be careful of the word earth shift while the climate conference is ongoing, but it’s really about a good earth shift. To such an extent that it has dragged Mr. Van der Maelen into its enthusiasm; he was very pleased with the action of this government, which is working on those international obligations and standards.

Never before have we been satisfied to address such an initiative that creates so much international tax transparency: transparency around the identity; transparency about the accounts, about the status of those accounts and the stand; transparency about the entire asset and, last but not least, transparency about the cash flows that come into or out of those accounts.

We talked about tackling tax fraud. This requires knowledge and an insight into transactions that take place abroad. This was especially discussed this afternoon, when it was about the moving tax and the exemption. This involves large international money flows. If the ambition is to reach a fair share of taxes, so that everyone contributes a fair and fair share, then we should be able to perform those checks based on the complete and complete information. Therefore, it is a very important tool. That is why I think I can use the word “earth shift” correctly.

The bill is welcomed positively, across all party boundaries, majority and opposition support this, because we all strongly believe in the power of information. There is a lot in this bill, but we can extract more. Therefore, I ⁇ wanted to take the floor today, to put the points on the i and to give certain words a range, to give an interpretation and to propose to the minister, who can approve it or not. Mr. Minister, I think you already know exactly what I am referring to. I would like to take a few points out.

Let me start with the aspect of the fight against terrorist financing. There was an opinion from the Privacy Commission that I would like to read. I understand that the bill is primarily limited to tax matters. Of course, there is always a certain interference, because if one asks for information about the people, then there is a certain violation of the personal sphere. If it is legitimate, proportionate, well-motivated and established on a legal basis, then there is nothing wrong with it. It would, of course, be problematic if this regulation would be placed before a judicial authority because of the violation of individual rights and guarantees.

I think that by what we will decide this afternoon that information will also be able to be used in the fight against, for example, money laundering practices, corruption and the financing of terrorism. It would be good to confirm that that information will also be used for these purposes.

I would also like to ask the Minister whether he is willing to review the current policy instruments on combating phenomena such as money laundering, corruption and the financing of terrorism. Per ⁇ the instrument of this afternoon is also perfectly suited to carry out the struggle against these phenomena appropriately. So let us use the car not only to drive to the now already defined destinations, but also to go to very interesting destinations that are politically extremely current.

The next comment is about the assistance we can provide to developing countries. In the report of Mr Piedboeuf and myself, you can read that several MEPs have asked the Minister whether he is willing to support developing countries. The minister’s classic response was that he attaches great importance to legal certainty. It is, of course, true that that information must be used correctly and that this should not lead to illegal assessments or so. However, it is important that we build capacity, assisting third countries, in particular the least developed countries, developing countries, to have access to their assets abroad. In this way, they can calculate a correct taxable basis.

A final observation concerns the finality of the bill and the Minister’s interpretation of Article 2 of the bill. During the discussion in the committee, I have already made a whole statement on this. I will not do it again. The information collected by our Belgian financial institutions and transmitted to the FOD Finance shall not be used by our administration for the establishment or collection of any Belgian tax. During the discussion of the draft I referred to some opinions of the Council of State, which see a discrimination in this provision, a discrimination between Belgians and other Europeans with foreign accounts, on the one hand, and Belgians with Belgian accounts and foreigners working here, on the other. This discrimination is a violation of the free movement of services and capital, as the Council of State has repeatedly stated.

During the discussion, I also referred to the Minister’s commitments regarding the exchange of excess profit rulings. I would like to give it a little bit because I would like to draw the analogy. The Minister says that our country has a pioneering role to fulfill. Belgium wants to act proactively, wants to be high in the ranking of transparent countries. These are all principles that are highly respected by us.

You go even further and advocate an active role of the European Commission. You ask the Commission not only to exchange judgments, but also to use them for the conduct of a policy.

Mr. Minister, I call on you not to be a leak or a clerk of that financial information, but to use that possibility of transparency for the Belgian tax authority. I said in the interview that you should not limit yourself to filling and forwarding the envelope, but that you should also keep a copy at hand or dare to crack the envelope and check what we know and what we need to carry out a good fiscal and financial policy.

We discussed the fraud plan this week in the committee. You referred there to the initiatives to be taken regarding non-resident taxation. You said there are problems with control and inning. You will be presented here this afternoon the tool to address the control and collection possibilities regarding the GNI.

You do not need to change anything for that. You do not need to rewrite the memory. You should leave a trace in the Integral Report and say that this is interesting, that we can use this at a suitable time, because I really think that Article 2 carries those possibilities.

I would also refer to the recent issue of 18 November 2015 of the journal Fiscolog, which states that this bill unambiguously introduces a difference in treatment between two categories of holders of Belgian accounts, in particular the tax residents and the non-residents.

My conclusion is that your interpretation of Article 2 constitutes a discrimination incompatible with the free movement of services and capital. Since I still cannot rely on a trace in the reporting of the commission, I therefore call you once again to want to revise or confirm that interpretation, so that it is stated that our tax authority can use this information for the establishment and collection of the due Belgian tax.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, we are very happy to support this draft and hope that you will get more out of it, because there is more in it.

Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen ministers, colleagues, as a colleague has already said, the sp.a. group has approved this bill in the committee. We will also approve it in this plenary session.

As I said in the committee meeting, I have spent ten years in the Finance Committee for what is on the table. However, I must boldly admit that my force of conviction is immensely much smaller than the force of conviction of the FATCA.

The United States is much higher in terms of tax ethics than Belgium. They have succeeded in convincing the right-wing parties — I remember the long discussions with Minister Reynders and colleagues from the Open Vld — where my force of conviction failed. The big brother on the other side said it had to be done with states that are doing the devil through tax competition. The United States believed that information should be exchanged. The European countries, including Belgium with a right-wing government, had to follow brave.

From the entry into force of this law, we will know the unique situation for Belgium that the Belgian fiscal authority, thanks to cooperation with the fiscal authorities of more than one hundred countries in total, will know how much capital Belgians have abroad. We will receive that information. This is an important step towards fiscal justice. This is also the first reason why we will vote for this bill.

Our principle is that all shoulders should bear the burdens, but that the strongest should bear the heaviest burdens. Until recently, those who have a lot of money and who can afford the luxury of taking tax advisors under their arms could hide their money abroad. This is now ending.

This is the first reason why we are pleased that this bill – again, thanks to the United States’ drive – will also come into force in Europe and Belgium, with a right-wing government.

The second reason why we will approve the bill is because it ends a discussion I have held countless times with Minister Reynders and colleagues from Open Vld. After all, I advocated that Belgian banks should also give the information they have about Belgians to the tax authorities.

I spare you all that I got thrown into my head because of the colleagues of the Open Vld and the MR. In a loud tone, they said, “Never!” That, according to them, was against privacy. They picked up articles, mostly written by tax lawyers who made themselves rich by giving tax advice, with which they proved that my proposal was contrary to the Convention on Human Rights and opposed to European regulations.

Today, colleagues from the Open Vld, the MR and the N-VA, it is your turn. I recently admitted that I cannot compare myself to the United States. You will now also have to boldly admit that you have taught us something for years and that there are many other interests behind hiding than the sacred principle of privacy. That is the second reason why we will gladly approve the bill.

There is another third reason. Again, how many times during replicas because of the same three right-wing parties, the N-VA, the Open Vld and the MR, I had to hear on my proposals that I would organize the capital flight? If I dared address such a thing, all the money would flow away, resulting in less tax revenues rather than more. My colleagues on the right side, you have also lost that argument.

As I said before, it is already about 100 countries. There are a total of 196 countries in the world. By 2020, all 196 countries in the world will be part of this tax cooperation network within which information will be exchanged.

So, colleagues on the right, you’ll have to rely on your creativity. I do not underestimate it, but you will have to have other arguments if we, from the left, come up with suggestions by which we say that capital must also contribute. It has to be done to put the burden on the employees. There needs to be a real tax shift and not the decoction of it that you are now preparing. However, we do not yet know the texts, but they will be explained tomorrow and must be approved by the committee on Monday and Tuesday. That’s not the creativity I was talking about. This is stupidly ignoring the role and place of Parliament in decision-making. It is below everything.

We will therefore vote in favour, but since there is now a thickness on the right and you so easily let go of what you have always claimed to stand for, I also note that it can be even better, colleagues. We have, together with the PS, submitted three amendments. I hope you will approve it. I will not explain them here long and broadly, because I have done so in the committee.

The first amendment is aimed at bringing the fines at the level of the other European countries. Now they are between 1 000 and 5 000 euros. We propose to multiply this by 10 and then reach the level of countries like Germany and Sweden. I know that this finance minister is so kind to the banks. I was moved by the way he committed to slowly crushing the tobint tax in a subtle way, to defend the interests of the banks. This also applies to sanctions, which are very severe. Let us please get to the level of tax-civilized European countries like Germany and Sweden.

I know that in this majority, the confidence in the banks is high. After that, I no longer have much confidence in myself. Therefore, we have submitted a second amendment, which stipulates that one must be able to go a long way, to withdraw the authorisation of that bank, if a bank is complicit, i.e. if it itself organizes fraud, for example by not passing on information — which still can be — about Belgian taxpayers.

For the third amendment this is my third attempt. I have submitted it to the Committee on Finance. I have also submitted it to the Justice Committee.

I do not understand the current majority. She has twice voted against our amendment that, in simple terms, consists in using the treasure of information that states will possess. We have information in Belgium about all Belgians with money abroad. The other countries have information about their citizens and especially about their capital they own somewhere abroad. This is a treasure of information. Why should we not use this information to combat terrorist financing?

I have submitted an amendment in the Committee on Finance and in the Committee on Justice to resolve this. Twice, the current majority voted against my amendment.

Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you. My amendment will be submitted for the third time. In Flemish the phrase is: “Three times is shipping right.” I hope the third time will be the right time. The Christmas atmosphere is coming. Per ⁇ it is possible for the majority to take into account the aspirations of members of the opposition, especially when they do their best to approve bills.

That is the first point.

Second, my heart beat this morning when I read an article. I will talk about the article later. I pointed out in the committee that the excess profit rulings – “would be unsustainable” and that “the European Commission would tick Belgium on the fingers”. My words were laughed away.

Well, today I make a prediction for you again. The situation that will arise after the entry into force of the present draft, in which the Belgian Fiscal Service has information about capital held by Belgians abroad but no information about capital held by those same Belgians at Belgian banks, will not pass the examination of the Constitutional Court or the examination of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

Colleagues, therefore, it is high time to bring Belgium to the big peloton of the tax-civilized countries and thus also to abolish domestic banking secrecy.

In the conscious article in MO*, the global magazine, I read: “Break the banking secret altogether. Say that CD&V said it.”

Colleagues, in this article, the Chairman of the Committee on Finance, Eric Van Rompuy, announces that he is preparing a bill to abolish domestic banking secrecy.

Colleague, you can guess it. You will receive the full support of the entire sp.a. faction. I know you can count. If you haven’t done it yet: if all colleagues from the opposition support this bill, and we add the 18 votes of the CD&V group, then we have 83 votes against 150. In short, colleagues of CD&V, please do not wait too long. Submit that bill and we will deliver the votes that finally end the Belgian banking secret.

The third possibility to make me even happier – I know this is your all-hidden ambition – is to say that when that law comes into force, there is no need for tax regularization anymore. I just read on Belga that the tax regularization has been postponed. I assume due to competence problems, due to opinions of the State Council and so on. We no longer need tax regulation.

I would like to remind my colleagues, who are a little younger than I am, and unfortunately for me, that there are so many, of the period when we debated the introduction of the European Savings Directive. At that time, Belgian legislation already stipulated that a Belgian is obliged to indicate on his tax return whether he has capital in another European country. In 2003, approximately 36 000 people completed it. The decision to introduce the European Savings Directive was made in 2004, and the Directive came into force in 2008 or 2009; I do not know exactly.

Colleagues, do you know how many Belgians already ⁇ in 2007 how much capital they had in another European country?

Painted 4 . One hundred and thirty thousand, I thought even 136 000 Belgians gave even before the savings directive came into force that foreign capital, because they knew that the directive was coming. Well, with this bill, exactly the same will happen.

There is one difference and again we see how kind this majority is to the capitalists, especially when it comes to taxes. Again, we note that this government majority gives those ladies and gentlemen, after having already been given the chance to regularize themselves three times, another chance, a fourth chance. I hear this majority say that they have imposed punitive conditions. These conditions are lower than those provided by current legislation. It would be more profitable to the State if the money that is still in the foreign country, for which there has already been a chance to regularize three times, would be washed by the normal legal way. That would do a lot more for the government. But no, this majority is kind to those with a lot of capital who, despite three opportunities, are still with their money abroad.

Fourth, I can be brief about the possibilities to improve this bill. I would like to remind you of what Mr. Deseyn said in the committee. I do not understand why we would not use the information available to the tax authorities to impose a fair tax on non-resident holders. In the memory of an explanation there is a sentence that one will not do that. Mr. Deseyn is right, I fully support him in this. A statement by the Minister may later revoke this text in the memorandum of explanation and thus all information about non-resident holders that we have can also be used to collect a fair tax.

Fifth, and I will now make colleague Deseyn suspicious in the eyes of his colleagues of the majority. I agree with his argument that this instrument – I have also done this week with regard to the Minister of Development Cooperation – also provides opportunities for developing countries.

Developing countries often struggle with capital flight, with the illegal leakage of money, but also with the hiding of capital from persons belonging to their political or economic elite who have that money elsewhere, in the West, on bank accounts. Making this information available to developing countries would be a big step forward and could ensure that we provide these countries with a very important aid for the country’s self-development. With this I mean the improvement of the social and economic conditions in the country based on the income that those countries actually have the right to, income they are now losing because certain people from the elite do not want to make their contribution to their country and prefer to keep this money hidden in western or northern banks.

I repeat it again: our group will approve this bill, but I look forward to your vote on those three amendments with great interest and I look forward to other initiatives by which this majority could prove that it continues to follow the momentum of this bill and with us strives for a taxally more just Belgium.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, as others have said before me, this is an interesting and useful step forward in the fight against tax fraud and for a fairer taxation, unlike other acts that have not been put forward by the federal majority.

You are responsible for this. It must be said positively. But even more responsible than you, in the positive sense of the term, are those who pushed Belgium to act, notably the U.S. government with its FATCA project, the OECD working on the issue and the European Union, since this text is the merger of three international agreements, three international demands. This will contribute to a better exchange of bank information between the Belgian and foreign tax administrations. In this, we can obviously support it since it will allow, if this information is well exploited and if the flow of information is correct and efficient, to have a better perception of the tax.

That said, the test is not perfect. The Minister, Mr. Deseyn, who is not present, made, both in the committee and in the plenary session, a ⁇ well-documented and argued presentation, highlighting that his party had not obtained, in the negotiations within the government, everything he hoped in this document. On certain points, of course, I can join him. I regret that he did not support proposals for improving the text from various members of the opposition, including from your servant, because we had a good background discussion on the text.

Some questions still arise, in particular this form of inequality between foreign citizens and Belgian citizens. For foreign citizens, a much more comprehensive communication with foreign tax administrations will be ensured than if they were Belgian with the Belgian tax administration. The amounts on their bank account will be communicated. This can raise questions in terms of equality and free movement.

The most obvious solution is to adapt the same rules for Belgian taxpayers, so as to give more capacity to the tax services, with very clear tags for privacy issues, as exists in other countries. It would be about having access to the same information for Belgian taxpayers.

Another question concerns the ability of the Belgian tax administration to manage all information that will be communicated from abroad. After reading the text and following the discussions we have had, I confess to you that I regretted that your answers were not more precise on the subject. We do not see very well what role the central contact point, which gathers within the National Bank all the bank information of Belgian taxpayers and depositors, will play in the processing of this information.

The text could have been improved. We submitted several amendments, including an amendment to tighten the regime of sanctions against banking institutions that would not play the game, which would not properly fulfill their obligations of reporting assets in their institutions of foreign citizens. The level of fines that is planned is much lower than that exists in other countries, notably Germany and Austria, which were cited in the communication. It does not seem to us, Madame Demir, to be in a way to deter banking institutions from not playing the game properly. We wanted to weigh it by simply aligning it with foreign regimes. by Mr. Deseyn made the same comment as us, but unfortunately he did not vote for our amendment.

Another proposal we have made is to organize country-by-country reporting, including for countries with which we have not yet signed an information exchange agreement. I think in particular of countries whose tax administration, the tax system is not yet sufficiently organized, especially developing countries.

They could have a better view of the assets held by their fellow citizens in foreign countries, to better orient their efforts in the fight against fraud and ⁇ obtain additional resources for the development of their own public services. We regretted that this amendment was not supported and that you did not provide for some form of asymmetry in particular situations for signing agreements with countries for which it would be useful to know the assets of their citizens in Belgium, without they being able to return the same to us at the moment.

Similarly, the amendment submitted by colleague Van der Maelen aimed to rehabilitate the text in its first version, also as a tool for combating terrorism, organized crime, arms and human trafficking. This mention was included in the text of the first reading and was withdrawn following the opinion of the Privacy Protection Commission, although the State Council had not made any comments on this subject. We proposed, in support of the amendment of colleague Van der Maelen, to re-establish the text in its original form. We are obviously concerned about privacy protection, but it is not absolute and in relation to facts of such gravity, it would be normal for a flow of information to justice to be organized.

We do not understand, in these circumstances, that the majority did not follow this amendment and did not agree to improve the text. I felt a certain frilance, of which one can say, being optimistic and positive, that it is the consequence of the novelty of the device. We will resubmit these amendments in the hope that this time, in the plenary session, they can be held, that members of the majority have had time to reflect, or that some members, for example of CD&V, accept these amendments.

Furthermore, I think that this device will need to be evaluated and adjusted to verify how it works, whether the foreign tax administrations are correct with regard to Belgium and whether the Belgian tax administration has the ability to process all the information received correctly.

It can be imagined that significant information flows could lead to some congestion, if the computer and human devices are not set up so that this improved flow leads to better tax collection.

Today, a first step will be taken, with our support, even if our amendments are not supported I think we have not finished talking about this international exchange of banking information. This is a tool that will need to be optimized, possibly based on trials and errors. You can, in any case, rely on me to ask you promptly for a first assessment of these international agreements.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, I will be brief because my colleagues have already broadly expressed themselves.

I would simply say that, in our opinion, this project is going in the right direction, which is why we will vote for it.

However, I have some reluctance. First of all, I don’t know – this issue has already been discussed regarding the Tax Fraud Plan – how the staff whose number is already far too fair within the SPF Finance will be able to process the information flows that will occur as a result of the application of this automatic exchange of information. In my opinion, we will face a major problem with a lot of data that cannot be used without sufficient personnel, which is very regrettable.

Then, this project of automatic exchange of information will be voted but, at the same time, bank secrecy is ⁇ ined in Belgium, which is contradictory. It is true that this bank secret can be lifted, but the procedure for doing so is quite heavy and the information is not automatically transmitted. So I can’t help but read what fiscal lawyer Thierry Afschrift wrote in Trends Trends on this subject. It is not every day that I repeat the words of this gentleman of which one can say – I will not repeat here the words that I used in the commission – that he is not the friend of the tax.

According to M. Afschrift, we have interest, in order to hide money from the tax, to leave its money to Belgian banks rather than abroad. I quote him: “Today, if a Belgian resident taxpayer wants to have guarantees that the tax office does not know the amounts that appear on his account, the country where he has an interest in holding his capital is simply Belgium. If he places them in foreign banks, they will very soon have to communicate the information to the taxpayer automatically, while if his assets are in Belgian banks, the taxpayer will only be able to know them if he already has excellent reasons to suspect the taxpayer of tax fraud."

I conclude by pointing out that we are submitting an amendment that wants to extend the communication of this tax information so that it can also be used for the purpose of fighting terrorism. Indeed, we have a very dynamic majority to take all kinds of measures against terrorism except when it comes to financial and economic issues. In these circumstances, all of a sudden, we feel a frilosity. I am sure that the majority, in the meantime, has recovered and will vote on this amendment.

I will not repeat all the positive aspects of this important draft. However, I will formulate two additional points of criticism before the minister replicates.

First, the sanctions in this bill are on the low side.

The second point is very close to my heart and the State Council has also commented on it. The draft law presented here goes beyond a mere transposition of the FATCA agreement. It contains mixed powers for which the counties are also partly competent. This has been accomplished without the state states having been given the opportunity to cooperate on this. This is a dangerous precedent.

We will approve this draft because it is too important and it is something that should take away the approval of the whole Parliament. However, I do not find it susceptible to repeating the exclusion of the provinces, ⁇ since it is a mixed competence in which the provinces should have a contribution.

I would like to comment on Mr. by Van Hees. Regarding the easing of bank secrecy in Belgium (intra muros), since the law was passed, the Special Tax Inspectorate, in the cases of tax fraud that concern it, has already requested several hundred levies of bank secrecy. It is effective! It must be rejoiced! Pretending that nothing has been done is exaggerated.

Unless it is a mistake on my part, but it is still necessary for the Minister of Finance to confirm or deny it, the transmission of information that must exist within the framework of what we are asked to vote will concern not only the income that is derived from investments on accounts, but also the salaries of those accounts. There will be a transfer of the assets held in Belgium through the SPF Finances to other tax administrations.

We have some critical elements of the current proposals, but overall, they are going in the right direction. I observe that some OGNs consider them with a good eye. This struggle has been fought for many years. At some point, obstacles have been raised from some side of the political chessboard in Belgium, but in favor of a somewhat late awareness at the European level, we are finally moving forward in this matter.

That is why we must be fair in relation to evolution. Certainly, this is not perfect, Mr. Van Hees, but it is a positive evolution.

The FATCA agreement with the United States and the multilateral CRS agreement are very important agreements that support international efforts to better map tax avoidance.

Additional initiatives are currently underway, in particular within the framework of the OECD, to further develop this type of data exchange. After all, all this is to be done. One can only act if one knows what it is about and where certain amounts are located.

It is definitely and firmly my will and that of the government to continue to respond to this. I think that the current entry into force of the Kaimantax is very clearly in line with the international efforts that are being made and with the progress that is being made and which, as rightly stated by Mr. Van der Maelen, is primarily under the impetus of the United States.

Particularly within the OECD, but also at European level, additional initiatives are expected to promote, clarify, streamline the exchange of information and thus gain a clearer grasp of the fight against tax fraud and, above all, against tax avoidance.

In addition, I would like to briefly address a number of specific issues that have been mentioned, in particular concerning the different treatment of the data exchanged abroad and the data received from abroad.

Should the tax administration not use the first and the second? Well, the situation is not equal. The information provided abroad relates to Belgian accounts, which in most cases are subject to an exemptive mobile charge. In addition, it is of course true that the tax authority, through the appropriate channels, can always dispose of this information if necessary.

As regards information coming from abroad, these elements do not apply. There is no Belgian liberating mobile advance tax applicable, nor can the Belgian Fiscal Authority simply obtain the necessary information, not least since it is in most cases unaware of the existence of the foreign accounts concerned.

It also referred to the fight against terrorism and the possible application of such legislation in that area. For me, the fight against terrorism is an absolute priority. However, the distinction must be made between, on the one hand, the exchange of tax information, which is discussed in the present draft law, as both FATCA and CRS are concerned, and the fight against tax and financial crimes.

For each of those applications, specific and appropriate instruments and rules apply. I naturally refer here again to the law passed in September 2015 that allows the government to freeze funds of terrorist groups.

It has been advocated for an extension to developing countries, where indeed, often through tax evasion, significant sums are withdrawn from the local tax authorities. I am confident and ready to study further initiatives in this regard.

Mr. Deseyn has already said it and I have already indicated in the committee itself that one must take into account the fact that on the other side of the agreement, however, there must also be a minimum of legal certainty before one can start with it. But again, in the current context, I am ⁇ willing to look at initiatives in that direction.

Then I come to the involvement of the provinces. With regard to the FATCA agreement with the United States, a reservation is made that the data obtained will not be used for the recording of regional taxes.

As regards the other conventions, in particular CRS, they provide for the possibility of exchanging the data concerned. However, I had to conclude during talks with the Regents that they are not really warm-lipped for this now. I am, of course, open to seriously considering any initiative that would emerge in this regard.