The “Inventory of Tax expenditures” is published on a yearly basis, as an annex to the Ways and Means Budget ("Budget des Voies et Moyens - Middelenbegroting"). The full publication occurs in Dutch and in French, under the title "Inventory of tax exemptions, deductions and credits having an impact on federal tax revenue". This means that in addition to tax expenditures, the full publication also includes the cost (revenue forgone) of provisions that are considered as part of the benchmark tax system. In this publication, we restrict to tax expenditures, this means those who deviate from the benchmark tax system and are thus focused on specific incentive targets which could be reached by direct expenditures. The Inventory aims also to increase budget transparency and to establish closer links between tax and direct expenditures.
The Inventory being an annex to the Federal Ways and Means Budget, It does not cover the taxes of which devolution of the competences and of the revenue have been made to the Regions.
The Inventory is based on the following definition of "tax expenditure" as initially chosen by the High Council of Finance: a loss of revenue resulting from a departure from the benchmark tax system that intends to favor specific taxpayers or economic, social, cultural activities, and that could be replaced by a direct subsidy.
The introduction describes notably what means "benchmark tax system" for each tax. It also contains details relating to the method used to calculate revenue forgone resulting from tax expenditures. Moreover, the Inventory contains a summary of the major results as well as a detailed table.
The full version of the Inventory of federal tax expenditures is available on the website of the Belgian House of Representatives.
The different parts of the last edition and of the previous editions of the Inventory of federal tax expenditures can be separately downloaded via the links below.
