Compensation
The Flemish region foresees a compensation of EUR 3,000 for businesses that do not need to close but that can demonstrate that the turnover has decreased with at least 60% between 15 March 2020 and 30 April 2020 compared to the same period in the previous year. This compensation payment is not taxed.
Deferral of tax payments
We already mentioned that the Flemish Government decided that the assessment notices with respect to immovable property tax (onroerende voorheffing / précompte immobilier) which are usually issued in May will be sent out as from September 2020 for legal entities. This week, the Flemish Government has also exceptionally given the municipalities the opportunity to adjust the surcharges for the immovable property tax. As a result of this, the assessment notices for immovable property tax can at the earliest be sent out at the end of June whereas these notices are generally issued at the end of April/beginning of May. This means that the immovable property tax is also deferred for non-legal entities, be it for approximately a two-month period.
Accelerated VAT Refund for VAT return relating to February 2020
All VAT taxable persons submitting monthly VAT returns (incl. those who do not have a monthly VAT refund authorization or who are not considered to be ‘starters’), will be able to benefit from an accelerated refund of their VAT credit. As a result of this measure, the VAT credit will be refunded no later than 30 April 2020 (instead of 29 May 2020 or even 30 June 2020).
In order to benefit from the accelerated VAT refund, the following specific conditions should be met:
- VAT refund is requested by a VAT taxable person submitting monthly VAT returns;
- VAT return relating to February 2020 must be submitted by 3 April 2020 at the latest; and
- VAT return must be submitted through Intervat and the box "Request for refund" ("Aanvraag terugbetaling") must be ticked (VAT taxable persons can submit a corrective VAT return until 3 April 2020 in order to tick this box).
Note that, besides the specific conditions listed above, the general conditions to request a VAT refund remain applicable:
- Minimum refundable amount should be EUR 245;
- All VAT returns for the current calendar year must be submitted correctly;
- VAT authorities dispose of a bank account number of the VAT taxable person on which the refunds can be paid; and
- No objection against the refund (e.g. as a result of transfer of receivables).
Please note that this VAT credit can still be offset against other outstanding debts and can be subject to an audit afterwards.
The deadline of 3 April does not affect the possibility to submit VAT returns relating to February 2020 which do not result in a VAT credit or for which no refund is requested timely until 6 April 2020.
