It was recently reported in the press that tax authorities will target Belgians with foreign bank accounts. On 08/06/2019, FPS Finance sent out a news release. This news release mentions the annual audit actions. One of them is that they will pay special attention to your tax situation if you have movable income related to a foreign account that you have not declared.
Our practice shows that clients hold Spanish bank accounts to pay the annual costs of their second residence. In other words, there is virtually no moveable income. The reporting obligation is therefore often forgotten. Therefore, this article will briefly explain the reporting obligation.
Read more about opening a Spanish bank account.
Reporting your Spanish bank account to the National Bank
First of all, you are required to register your Spanish bank account with the Central Contact Point of the National Bank of Belgium. You can do this in two ways.
Either you can register your Spanish bank account online via the National Bank web application.
Either you can fill in the standard form send to the address of the Central Contact Point: National Bank of Belgium, Central Contact Point, avenue de Berlaimont 14, 1000 Brussels.
Personal income tax return
In addition, you should report in your annual personal income tax return that you hold a foreign bank account. You can find this in box XIV A.
Not declaring makes no sense
Because of the automatic data exchange between tax authorities, the Belgian tax authorities have already received information about your Spanish bank account. Specifically, Spanish banks and other financial institutions will check in which country you are a tax resident. They will then share this data with the Spanish tax authorities. The Spanish tax authorities will then automatically transfer your data to Belgium.
The data relates to your personal data (name, address, tax identification number, date of birth, place of birth) and your bank account number. In certain cases, we also share balances, gross income and gross gains (e.g. capital gains on shares).
You should also declare your property income
Finally, don't forget to declare your property income from your second residence in personal income tax.
