Employers from the private sector and knowledge institutes are exempted from transferring 80% of the withholding tax due on the wages of researchers they employ to the tax authorities.
Before the exemption from payment of withholding taxes on R&D may be invoked, each project or R&D program must be registered via BELSPO. In this application, the project or program should be briefly illustrated on the basis of a number of questions, varying for each type of project experimental development, fundamental research or industrial research. The content of the project can be assessed at BELSPO through a request for advice before claiming the discount. We definitely recommend doing this for any project.
IS YOUR COMPANY OR KNOWLEDGE INSTITUTE ELIGIBLE?
- Universities, colleges, recognised scientific institutions, NFSR and FWO Flanders
- Companies who pay or award remunerations to researchers with a PhD, civil engineer, industrial engineer and certain master's or bachelor's degrees
- Companies who pay or award remunerations to researchers who work on research projects in the context of collaboration agreements concluded with universities or university colleges in the EEA or with recognised scientific institutions
- Non-profit organisations if recognised as a scientific institution
- YICs
What do you need to know?
Aid amounts
- For small companies, there is an 80% exemption for master's degrees, the same applies to bachelor's degrees (but it is limited to 50% of the total amount of the exemption as applied for employees with a specific master's degree and/or PhD)
- For other companies there is an exemption of 80% for master's degrees, the same applies to bachelor's degrees (but it is limited to 25% of the total amount of the exemption as applied for employees with a specific master's degree and/or PhD)
Specific points of interest
- Registration of the project in a BELSPO application
- Registration of R&D employees in a BELSPO application
- Documentation obligation concerning the employees (diplomas, IDs, use of time, ...) and the project (progress, results, ...)
- In case of a possible tax audit, it must be possible to present all mandatory documents.
How can we help?
- Assessing the support framework
- Calculating your benefit
- Assisting in submitting your application
- Assisting in the project follow-up and communication with your social secretariat
- Internal audit
- Assisting in tax audit
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