Banking sector calls attention to fairness, balance and feasibility in introduction of capital gains tax
28 April 2025 - 4 min Reading time
While Febelfin is not commenting on the political policy choice to introduce a capital gains tax here, if it comes, we definitely want to advocate to the government the need for a fair, balanced and operationally feasible capital gains tax.
At the same time, we strongly emphasise Febelfin's willingness to engage constructively with the government on how to address the inherent complexities of such a tax. We want to contribute to a solution that is workable for all parties involved while achieving the intended policy goal in an equitable manner.
For us, it is essential that the tax is, on the one hand, as fair and correct as possible for citizens and, on the other hand, workable and realistically implementable for banks, which will play an undeniable role in it.
Balanced
Therefore, in light of the coalition agreement's objective of encouraging citizens to activate their savings and invest in the European economy, we as a sector consider it positive that a number of elements are being introduced to bring more balance to the capital gains tax proposal, such as being able to take into account the historical minus values and the possible carry-over of the €10,000 exemption amount by one year. This will be of benefit to the vast majority of citizens who qualify as modal investors.
A fair and proper tax
An idea is currently being discussed to have Belgian financial institutions deduct the withholding tax and thus apply it to any capital gains realised during the year. However, this will mean that citizens holding investments in Belgium through Belgian banks will always be over-taxed. Since the recovery of the exemption amount and capital losses are via the tax return, in practice they will therefore only be able to recover this after 2 years. Moreover, there is a chance that citizens do not implement this recovery in their tax return, and will therefore be finally over-taxed. The complexity should definitely not be underestimated and it will require a lot of effort for many citizens to understand and apply these new tax rules.
Moreover, as an industry we also want to draw the necessary attention to the importance of a level playing field with holding foreign assets and consider it important that citizens are not potentially disadvantaged if they hold securities with a Belgian bank.
After all, when holding a portfolio abroad, the entire calculation and payment is made via the tax return.
We plead as a sector to pay sufficient attention to taxing citizens as correctly as possible. Especially, as stipulated by the coalition agreement, a ‘solidarity contribution’ on the net capital gains (= after deduction of capital losses) achieved in a given year. However, this is not possible when opting for a deduction at the source by financial institutions.
Operationally feasible
Finally, the timing for introducing this tax and any withholding tax is not realistic. Banks would be expected to play a major role in this, which would require huge investments and massive IT adaptations. As the modalities are still not finalised as of today, it is impossible to be operational before 1/1/2026 and implement it in a careful and correct manner.
