BELGIUM Law and Practice Contributed by: Alain Van Geel and Emilie Van Goidsenhoven, Tiberghien
Generation skipping is an estate planning strategy whereby a grandparent who wishes to transfer part of their estate prioritises direct transmission to their grandchildren rather than to their children, who are often already financially established. This approach responds to longer life spans: the children have often already achieved financial independence and no long - er necessarily need an immediate gift or inheritance. Conversely, the grandchildren, who are just starting their professional lives, can benefit from this support to finance a home purchase or a life project, for exam - ple. 9. Planning for Non-Traditional Families 9.1 Children Under Belgian law, all children are equal before the law, regardless of the circumstances of their concep - tion or the marital status of their parents. Thus, chil - dren born out of wedlock have the same rights as those born to married parents: their parentage can be established through recognition, legal presump - tion or court proceedings, and they enjoy the same inheritance rights. Once a full (plenary) adoption is granted, adopted children are legally assimilated to biological children: they inherit from their adoptive parents and no longer from their original family. Adoption creates a complete legal parent-child relationship, fully integrating them into the categories of heirs for inheritance purposes. Belgium does not have specific legislation regard - ing children born through surrogacy, but the practice is not prohibited; it is tolerated as long as it is non- commercial and the intended parenthood is based on the informed consent of all parties involved. Legal parentage depends on postnatal legal establishment and not merely on intention or genetic connection. An intended parent may become a legal parent through recognition or adoption, provided the legal conditions are met. Children conceived after the death of a parent (post - humous conception) may be legally recognised, under strict conditions. Belgian law does not explicitly pro - hibit posthumous medically assisted reproduction,
but such a child can inherit only if legal parentage is established within the prescribed time limits. In all cases, inheritance rights depend on legal par - entage. Belgian law recognises a child as descend - ing from their legal parents, even in the absence of a genetic link (particularly in cases of adoption or sur - rogacy). Thus, it is the legally established parent-child relationship (and not merely the genetic or biological one) that determines whether the child is included among the heirs. Depending on the Region, the following are assimi - lated to direct descendants for the application of the gift/inheritance tax rates: • children adopted through simple adoption, pro - vided, amongst other things, that the adoptive child is the child of the partner of the adopter or the adoptive child has, before reaching the age of 21, received from the adopter or from the adopter and his or her partner jointly the care and support normally received by children from their parents, for one/six/three uninterrupted years; and Under Belgian law, marriage between two people of the same sex is fully equivalent to marriage between opposite-sex partners. Everything is treated the same, including tax returns, inheritance rights, divorce pro - ceedings and co-parenting. Legal partnerships are also available for same-sex couples. 9.3 Cohabitation and Unmarried Couples Belgian law distinguishes between married couples, legally cohabiting partners, and de facto cohabitants. For income tax purposes, legal cohabitants are gener - ally treated in the same way as married couples: they file a joint tax return, while each partner remains sepa - rately taxable on his or her own income. By contrast, de facto cohabitants are treated as separate taxpay - ers for income tax purposes and are required to file separate tax returns. • the children of the partner. 9.2 Same-Sex Marriage
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