Inventory of federal tax expenditures

The appendix to the "Budget des Voies et Moyens - Rijksmiddelenbegroting" is yearly published under the title "Inventory of the exemptions and reductions having an impact on government's tax revenue", "Inventory of federal tax expenditure" for short. The Inventory aims to inform the Parliament of the budgetary costs of tax measures, and notably of those which deviate from the benchmark tax system and are thus focused on specific incentive targets which could be reached by direct expenditure. The Inventory aims therefore to establish close links between tax and direct expenditure, regarding budget transparency.

Given that the Inventory is an appendix to the "Budget des Voies et Moyens - Rijksmiddelenbegroting", it is limited to taxes financing the Federal State.

The Inventory is based on the following definition as initially chosen by the High Council of Finance : Lower revenue resulting from tax incentives being the consequence of derogation from the benckmark tax system relating to a specific tax, in favour of some taxpayers or some economic, social, cultural etc. activities, and which could be replaced by direct expenditure.

The introduction descrives notably what means "benchmark tax system" for each tax. It also contains details relating to the method used to calculate tax revenue losses from tax expenditure. Moreover, the Inventory contains a summary of the major results as well as a detailed table.

The full version of the Inventory of tax expenditures is available on the website of the Belgian House of Representatives. 

XLS files detailing the estimated budgetary cost of each tax, can be separately downloaded via the link below.

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