Belgium Vat Return Form In English: Fill & Download for Free

If you’re doing business in those countries, you’re likely to be generating income. That will usually require you to file a tax return wherever you do that. You can get a local accountant to help you, or go to each country’s webpage for their tax authority and (if not in English, perhaps using Google Translate) see their requirements about registration.There maybe VAT to consider too, which requires registration.If you own a company in Ireland but don’t live there (not sure if you do or not), be careful. If you live in a country with that taxes its residents on worldwide income, chances are you could be in trouble in terms of domestic tax. Get advice.

Residents of the Netherlands need to have a BSN (burgerservicenummer – citizen service number) which is the fiscal number roughly equivalent to the national insurance number in the UK, social security number in the US or tax file number in Australia. The number is also a general identifier required for other government services and healthcare.Dutch Tax Department – The Dutch tax revenue department is known as the Belastingdienst (Belasting=tax, dienst=service). It sends most standard correspondence in a blue envelope – however there are long-term plans to phase this out and go to a digital-only platform. Most communication and information is in Dutch; tax office staff will generally only speak Dutch, even to foreign clients! There are some explanatory notes and forms in English available; there is some limited English info on its website here; the free telephone tax line for residents (0800-0543) is only available in Dutch.Dutch Tax Return – If you are working or hold investments in the Netherlands, you may be invited/required to complete a Dutch tax return (aangifte) which covers the calendar year. Tax returns can be submitted online either by an accountant or by an individual using DigID, the online identity management platform run by the Dutch government. Expect to pay €500-600 for an accountant to prepare a standard Dutch tax return.Depending on your situation, you can either be fully resident in the Netherlands, partially resident or non-resident for tax purposes. Most people living and working in the Netherlands will be regarded as resident. Being resident means you are taxed on your worldwide income and assets, however you are allowed to use the standard allowances. Those living outside of the Netherlands but receiving a Dutch taxable income will normally be non-resident, although they can deem themselves resident.If you have moved to or have left the Netherlands during the tax year you will have to fill in the M Form tax return. In other special cases, non-resident taxpayers need to file the C Form; those not living in the Netherlands but deemed resident taxpayers should file the P form. Depending on the deadline date of your tax return, you (or your accountant) can ask for a personal extension of a few months. The deadline for a standard tax return is 1 April.In a nutshell, the standard Dutch tax return has 3 category boxes for different types of taxable income. Box 1 applies to employment income and home ownership, Box 2 applies to income from a substantial interest in a company and Box 3 to worldwide savings and investments held.Dutch Tax Rates – The Netherlands has some of the highest income taxes in the world – progressive tax rate bands for 2019 apply which include national insurance contributions:0 to€20,384–36.65%(9% tax + 27.65% national insurance)€20,384 to €34,300 – 38.10% (10.45% tax + 27.65% national insurance)€34,300 to €68,507 – 38.10% tax€68.507 and higher – 51.75% taxIn Europe only Belgium, Denmark, France, Portugal and Sweden have a higher top rate of tax. An employee earning €100,000 would effectively have to pay around €42,100 in income tax. For a rough idea of your net salary check this tax calculator. Lower income taxpayers get a personal tax credit of around €2,477; sole traders (zelfstandigen zonder personeel or zzp) also get a tax deduction (zelfstandigenaftrek) of €7,280.Family – Married and/or co-habiting couples can be fiscal partners (under certain conditions) which can make the division of income and deductibles more efficient for your combined tax return. There are various tax credits available for those who have children.30% Rule – If you are recruited or transferred from another country for a position in the Netherlands you may qualify for the 30% ruling – this is where only 70% of your salary will be taxed, effectively lowering the tax rate. You must have “specific expertise” in your field and a minimum salary requirement for the position will apply. To get this ruling both you and your employer must file a detailed application to the tax office.Redundancy Payments – If you lose your job any redundancy payment is regarded as income – so you will be taxed at your highest tax rate band. In some cases the tax could be mitigated using longer term insurance arrangements.Wealth Tax – The Netherlands has a wealth tax (box 3) on savings, property and investments where profits are taxed at 30%. The tax is paid on a fictitious profit which is weighted depending on the amount of declared assets. There is an exemption on the first €30,360 for individuals and €60,720 for fiscal partners. For the 2019 tax year the taxable tiers are for assets €0-€71,650, €71,651-989,736 and beyond €989,737. Effective rates rise progressively for each successive band – around 0.58%, 1.34% and 1.68% respectively. This wealth tax means that there are no capital gains taxes for investments.Corporate Taxes & Dividends – Corporate tax rates are 19% for the first €200,000 and 25% on the remainder. Dividends are taxed at 15%. Private limited companies are known as bv or besloten vennootschap.VAT – There is a Value Added Tax called the BTW (Belasting Toegevoegde Waarde) of 21% on most goods and services and a low tariff of 9% for food, medicine and other selected items. If you run a business (ondernemer) then you will need to charge BTW to your clients; on the other hand you can also reclaim any BTW from your expenses. VAT returns can be done online (usually quarterly) through the tax department’s web portal.Tax Refunds – If you have worked in the Netherlands only part of the year then you may be entitled to a tax refund, due to overpayment of income tax and national insurance contributions. You can request a refund directly from the tax office or during the filing of a tax return.If you live outside the EU you can request a VAT refund on any goods bought whilst in the Netherlands subject to minimum purchase prices.Home Owners – Dutch tax residents who own and live in a property with a mortgage can get tax relief on the mortgage interest payments. The future status of this relief is under discussion. Property owners are also liable to pay annual property taxes (OZB, onroerende zaakbelastingen) to the local municipality which is based on the deemed value of the immovable property (known as WOZ, wet waardering onroerende zaken).Death Taxes – Should you die whilst resident in the Netherlands then your entire estate will have to pay inheritance taxes subject to certain exemptions. Rates vary between 10% and 40%.

So you are thinking/fighting for/fighting against a local office?I am a passionate believer in having a local office - I have worked in both a centralised and decentralised structures within an American organisation I see consistently higher turnover with a local office.ProsSales. Unless your SaaS product is entirely self-service you will need some sort of local presence to get things sold. No matter how good your product, if you are talking the same language as your buyer, know the market so better understand your buyers problems you will win that sale 99% of the time. So local sales are eventually a must, but you do not have to have an office to sell: you can use a reseller. Physical products have well established distribution channels, but SaaS does not have the same reseller infrastructure, yet. So SaaS almost has to have a local presence. Oh, if you do use a reseller, expect a 30%-50% discount on selling price. 30% is becoming the well established SaaS ‘trade’ discount, thanks to Steam/App Store et al. And a reseller will need further margin to underpin local marketing efforts.Marketing. A local office will flavour your local marketing and make sure it resonates and uses local channels. LinkedIn is a perfect marketing tool in the US, but struggles with Xing in Germany. Also understanding how to reach your client varies enormously (trade shows are a big thing in Germany, almost useless in the UK).Beat your competitors. Used this tactic in several Nordic and Eastern European market. We were no 2 on a software product and by opening an office first, we leap frogged our competitor. So if you have an opportunity to open in a country ahead of a competitor, it is a great way to steal market share.Localisation. One of the biggest mistakes people make is to think a third party localisation agency is easy. It is not - there are nuanced words in every business that vary from country-to-country. Germany, for example, uses English words in ways that no English speaking person would understand them.. and these words are often translated into a German equivalent which then sounds really odd! (‘Handy’ anyone?)Culturalisation. Translating the language is often considered sufficient for a product to be ready for a local market… often there are other factors that are far more important. Even the way you ask your customers to pay will be a big hurdle (good luck asking Germans to pay for B2B SaaS products with a personal credit card).There are some great examples of how a local office has driven success. The small business accounting space is a fiercely competitive SaaS segment and demonstrates how a local office can drive many x times sales. Check out two heavy weights: Xero (headquartered in NZ) and Freshbooks (headquartered in US). Xero has a UK office and has completely smashed Freshbooks. The local office lobbies internally for locally relevant features (e.g. submit your VAT return online) but probably more importantly, it underpins local marketing strategies. Xero cleverly wooed accountants in the UK, who then effectively sold in Xero to their clients.Caveats and notesThere are a number of issues that do fall out of opening an office. You need to separate out demands for local feature x to really make a difference. You need to stop local offices from going wild through regular meetings and contact back to the main office.A central sales office in Ireland does not count as a ‘local’ office. Your tax people will love this, but you will need to have German and French (especially) sales people in Germany and France if you want to get scale in these large markets. If you must have an export sales department base it near Heathrow so its easy to get get around, people can quickly visit a client in South Africa/Finland/Malta etc.Its fine and normal to group some markets. Benelux offices for Belgium and Netherlands, Nordic offices in one of the four Nordic countries, Australian office for Oz/NZ etc are pretty normal.UK is a great starting point as its easy to hire/fire. Easy to set up a business entity. Easy to get to from most parts of the world. It is a large market (usually no 2 after US) and they speak English. Also English pragmatism will help create a template for other local offices (Germany is a complex market, far less influenced by US et al, with strong local laws and quite intimidating to start a local country in).Italy is really, really hard to get going. Its not that online is especially challenging.. itLocal market potentialsIn the end its all about the numbers. A local office costs money and your revenue will determine how much you want to expand in other markets.To determine revenue, if you are selling $50m in the US, you should be able to sell $10m in each of UK, Germany, France and Rest of Europe (though you will get to $10m in UK way ahead of the others). Asia is much harder: based on that $50m in US, perhaps $2m in Oz, $4m in Japan, $4m in China/Hong Kong.Your company tax strategy will also severely affect local offices. Its just so easy to justify x saving without looking at the top line revenue loss. Our European business stagnated for five years after moving to a tax-efficient Swissco. So fight against tax designing the best local territory structure. Tax need to support, not determine. We spent three years on determining a suitable tax strategy for Russia, losing $300m in revenue (to save $5m tax year….).Good luck.