Belgium ignored 40 million euros in taxes due to the fact cash become channeled for healthcare real estate

Between 2017 and 2021, the Belgian country lost an excellent 40 million euros in tax cash because Cofinimmo, a Belgian indexed real property employer, became able to switch cash meant for retirement houses.

De Morgen writes the news on Thursday based on an research by the joint alternate union front of ACV Puls and BBTK and the NGO Cictar. The studies focused on tax cash that flows to business residential care facilities.

In latest years, Cofinimmo has increasingly focused on actual estate in aged care. Each time, the employer proceeded inside the same manner: buildings of ordinarily big commercial companies in care for the elderly are sold up and then rented out once more to the same agencies. The relaxation homes of these business groups often need to pay excessive rents for their buildings.

The Cictar look at shows that Cofinimmo managed to make big profits on this manner, largely thanks to authorities subsidies for healthcare. In Belgium, approximately half of the profits of rest home operators (Cofinimmo’s lease-paying customers) comes from social protection.

Escaping withholding tax

In addition, actual property corporations which includes Cofinimmo are hardly taxed due to the fact in Belgium, as in lots of other European countries, a unique regime applies to this kind of corporation. They do not must pay the everyday 25 percent company tax, but most effective three.35 percentage. The underlying idea is that healthcare actual property is essential and that the dividends which can be paid out will then be taxed through the beneficiaries, writes De Morgen.

But the hassle is that a whole lot of constructions have been set up to escape the quite excessive withholding tax on dividends of 30 percentage. For instance, through mailbox organizations in Luxembourg or through intra-organization transactions, wherein income can be shifted to a tax-friendly destination. According to calculations in the report, this has fee the Belgian treasury from 2017 to 2021 on my own about 40 million euros for Cofinimmo, simplest one of the actual estate players inside the healthcare quarter.

Cofinimmo itself did not want to remark to De Morgen at the findings of the file.