Best Bitcoin Exchange for Belgium

Although crypto currencies still have an unregulated status in Belgium, the Belgian tax authority is currently examining the transactions of some private investors. The authority is investigating a tip it received from colleagues abroad.

Crypto currencies in Belgium

Last year, Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens twittered that he considered measures against cybercrime in the form of regulations to be useful. Crime has grown with the advent of “new technologies”. With this expression he aims at crypto currencies and blockchain technology. Geens called for stricter rules to be introduced. Companies in this sector should cooperate more with the Belgian authorities. The tax authority agreed with this view and was able to testify with statistics that the number of private investors, but also of investing companies, had increased significantly. Although these statements sound like a demand to regulate crypto currencies, no regulatory measure has yet been put in place and implemented. It cannot be ruled out that Belgium, like other European countries, expects a comprehensive solution for the EU.

Taxation

Even though no official regulation has been issued, private investors and investing companies are taxed on their trading income. The tax rate for private investors is 33% of the income they have earned. These must be declared in the tax return under “other income”. For companies investing in crypto currencies, the tax rate can be up to 50%. This is difficult for the Belgian tax authorities to control, as most transactions are carried out on crypto exchanges abroad. For this reason, the tax authority did not itself come up with the idea of examining such crypto transactions. Only after foreign colleagues had given a tip, the authority began with further investigations. The Belgian newspaper “Het Nieuwsblatt” wrote that crypto currencies were now the focus of the authority and that it was trying to obtain more information and data about transactions.

Belgium is not the first country in which tax authorities are pursuing numerous crypto transactions. Investors often look for grey areas because the status of crypto currencies has not been clearly defined in many countries. Especially in Europe, many countries therefore hope for a uniform solution to this problem.

Belgium is a federal parliamentary monarchy in Western Europe. It borders the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, France and the North Sea.

In the multi-ethnic state of Belgium, French Walloons, Flemish Dutch Flemings and West German Middle Franks live together. The rest of the resident population consists of immigrants from many parts of Europe (especially from Poland and Italy), Morocco and the former colonial areas.

The country was often fought over in history and occupied by Germany in both world wars. The introduction of a federal structure and the national consensus on the benefits of EU membership have somewhat defused the existing tensions between Flemings and Walloons.

• Belgium is a founding member of the European Union (EU), whose main institutions are based in the capital Brussels. The Belgian state is also a member of the Benelux Economic Union alongside the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
• The service sector dominates the Belgian economy with about 70%. Despite the country’s great industrial tradition, the manufacturing industry represents only about 15 percent of the gross domestic product. The most important economic sectors here are pharmaceuticals, chemicals and food.
• Belgium’s economy is strongly integrated into the world economy. Germany is one of Belgium’s most important economic partners, along with the Netherlands and France. Conversely, Belgium ranks 10th for Germany as a trading partner.

About Belgium

The Kingdom of Belgium is a federal state in Western Europe. It lies on the North Sea and borders the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and France. Belgium has around 11.3 million inhabitants (2016) on an area of 30,688 square kilometres – with 373 inhabitants per square kilometre, Belgium is one of the most densely populated states. At almost 98 percent, Belgium’s degree of urbanization is the highest in Europe. The city of Brussels is the capital and seat of the Belgian royal family as well as the center of the largest agglomeration. Other important large cities are Antwerp, which as a municipal administrative unit is also the largest city in the country, as well as Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, Bruges and Namur.

Since independence in 1830 and the constitution in 1831, Belgium has been a constitutional hereditary monarchy (see also Belgian Monarchy). The north of the country with the Flemings is Dutch, the south with the Walloons French (cf. Flemish and French Community). The Brussels-Capital Region is officially bilingual, but the majority of its inhabitants are French-speaking. Standard German and West Central German dialects are common in the German-speaking area of East Belgium (see German-speaking Community).

The Flemish-Walloon conflict, which has persisted since the 19th century, shapes the conflicting interests of the representatives of the two large population groups in Belgian politics. Since the 1970s, attempts have therefore been made to counter this problem by decentralising the state organisation. To this end, Belgium was transformed into a federal state consisting of six member states – three regions and three communities. The Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels-Capital regions, as well as the Flemish, French and German-speaking communities, now form the political basis of the country as member states. The structure of Belgium’s state is considered complex because, inter alia, the territories of the regions are not congruent with those of the Communities.

Belgium is a founding member of the European Economic Community (EEC), now the European Union (EU), whose main institutions are based in its capital Brussels. In addition to the Netherlands and Luxembourg, the Belgian state is also a member of the Benelux Economic Union.

Country name and overview

The name “Belgium” is based on the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. This northeastern part of Gaul was inhabited by tribes of Celtic (i.e. the Belgians) and Germanic (i.e. Germani cisrhēnani) origin. In the 18th century, the French adjective belge or belgique was considered the equivalent of Nederlands ‘Dutch’; the short-lived independent Belgian state of 1790 was called États belgiques unis in French, for example, and was mostly called Verenigde Nederlandse Staten in Dutch. Later, the use of belge and belgique was increasingly restricted to the southern Netherlands, now Belgium.

From the High Middle Ages to the middle of the 17th century, Belgium was a stronghold of cultural and economic creation and wealth. From the 16th century onwards, Belgium was a theatre of war for many battles between European rulers, for example during the coalition wars and the First and Second World Wars. Belgium participated intensively in the Industrial Revolution and from 1885 to 1960 owned the huge colony of Belgian Congo in Central Africa, since the First World War including the bordering areas of Rwanda and Burundi.