On November 18th 2020, the OECD gave the Mutual Agreement Procedure (MAP) Awards to recognise the efforts of competent authorities in resolving international double taxation.
Among the 105 jurisdictions represented (and almost all the mutual agreement procedures worldwide), Belgium has won several times:
- It finishes first with the lowest percentage (10%) of old MAP files (introduced before 2016) in the final inventory.
- Among the countries that have more than 100 files in stock, Belgium is recognised as the most efficient workload manager. Our country has the highest percentage of closed files (67%).
- In terms of mutual cooperation, it finishes in second place for its cooperation with Luxembourg (there is actually a tie with the cooperation between the Netherlands and the United Kingdom).
This is a great worldwide recognition of the quality provided by the FPS Finance, on behalf of Belgium, in resolving international double taxation!
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Vincent Van Peteghem congratulates his administration on receiving this prestigious award. "It is the work of our highly qualified staff. Belgium is a small country at the international level, but the tax administration has built up a good reputation in recent years among the international institutions in which our country participates. We will continue to have a constructive and proactive role in reforming international tax rules. For instance, we would like to consider the introduction of digital taxes so that companies operating in the digitalised economy also pay taxes. We will speak in favour of this idea to the OECD and the EU in order for such a tax to be imposed at the international level, which is considered to be the most efficient. "