Belgium Revises Tax Rules for Overseas Property Owners, Impacting Moroccan Real Estate

From now on, the property located abroad will be assigned a cadastral income. This is provided for by a law amending the declaration method published in the Belgian Official Gazette on February 25, 2021 and which will come into effect for the tax return on taxable income for 2021. "This property will therefore be taxed in the same way as the income from a real estate property located in Belgium, that is to say on the basis of the cadastral income," it is specified.

The tax authorities have taken into account the form containing information on foreign property filled out by the owners last year to define its cadastral income. Any owner of property abroad must now declare it (section A, as for Belgian real estate income, then section B of section III), in order to have equal treatment between property located abroad and those located in Belgium. "For the taxation itself, if the property is located in a country with which Belgium has concluded a double taxation prevention agreement (European countries, but also Tunisia, Turkey, Morocco and the United States in particular), then it is exempt from taxes," says Le Soir.

With this new system, Belgium has put an end to a form of discrimination. Previously, it was on the basis of the gross cadastral rental value, reduced by the tax paid abroad, that a real estate property was declared.