BELGIUM Law and Practice Contributed by: Alain Van Geel and Emilie Van Goidsenhoven, Tiberghien
are considered financial assets, like cash, and are therefore part of the deceased’s estate and subject to inheritance tax in the same way as other movable assets. The main legal difficulty is not ownership, but effective control: heirs must be able to identify the asset and access it. By contrast, purely personal digital assets (such as email accounts or personal social media profiles) do not fit neatly within traditional property concepts, so their fate is often governed less by succession law than by contractual terms imposed by service provid - ers. GDPR does not apply after a person’s death, and Belgium currently provides for no specific statutory provisions in this regard. 3. Trusts, Foundations and Similar Entities 3.1 Types of Trusts, Foundations or Similar Entities The Belgian private foundation was introduced in 2002 and is now governed by the rules in the Belgian Code on Companies and Associations. Belgian private foundations are subject to legal entities tax; if they engage in commercial/economic activities in more than an accessory manner, a private founda - tion could be subject to corporate income tax. Being subject to tax on legal entities implies that only certain income categories will be subject to income tax, such as dividend and interest income (default rate of 30%). A private foundation pays a yearly tax on the total of its assets on 1 January, unless this total amounts to less than EUR25,000. Debts are not deductible (with certain exceptions, such as operational costs). This is a progressive tax, with the rate amounting to: • 0.15% between EUR50,000 and EUR250,000; • 0.30% between EUR250,000 and EUR500,000; and • 0.45% in excess of EUR500,000. However, various appeals for annulment against this revised tax have been filed with the Belgian Consti - tutional Court.
Foreign private foundations are also recognised, but can be subject to the “Cayman tax” (see 3.3 Taxation of Trusts, Foundations and Similar Entities Located in Other Jurisdictions ). Another vehicle frequently used for planning purposes in Belgium is the société simple (see 2.6 Transfer of Assets: Vehicle and Planning Mechanisms ), which is useful for managing family assets transferred to the next generation. This entity is totally tax transparent and therefore has no tax impact. It is used in order to assure maintenance of the management of the trans - ferred assets by the donors or trusted managers (for as long as the beneficiary of the gift is still too young Trusts do not exist under Belgian civil law. Never - theless, Belgian conflict-of-law rules recognise and respect foreign trusts. 3.3 Taxation of Trusts, Foundations and Similar Entities Located in Other Jurisdictions The “Cayman tax” was introduced on 1 January 2015, and has been amended substantially as of 1 January 2018 and 1 January 2024. It is a look-through taxa - tion on private individuals and legal entities (subject to the legal entities tax). Income received by a non- or low-taxed legal construct is taxable income for the founder. Trusts automatically qualify as a legal con - struct for the purposes of the Cayman tax. The look-through approach entails the underlying income retaining its original qualification, and no effec - tive distribution is required for taxation to occur. Inter - est received by the legal construct remains interest, dividends remain dividends, and capital gains remain capital gains. The first two categories of income are generally taxed at a flat rate of 30% in Belgium. Capi - tal gains on movable assets realised by individuals were generally tax-exempt to the extent that they are realised within the normal management of one’s pri - vate assets, but since 1 January 2026 those capital gains are now taxed at 10%. to manage these assets solely). 3.2 Recognition of Trusts The look-through approach is combined with the taxa - tion of income received (or deemed to be received) from legal constructs. Complex rules aim to prevent
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