Comment gérer les revenus d'actionnaire-dirigeant dans la perspective d'une potentielle réforme de l'impôt sur les revenus?

Abstract

To sum up, it can be said that alternative compensation is a practice widely used by many company directors, because it is very advantageous, particularly from a tax point of view. This type of alternative remuneration is taxed on a flat-rate basis, which is more attractive than taxation on a real-value basis. This type of remuneration is even more important given that Belgium is one of the countries with the highest tax burden in the world, with tax rates of up to 50% on net annual income of 42,000 euros or more.

In an attempt to reduce the tax burden in Belgium, the current Minister of Finance, VINCENT VAN PETEGHEM, has decided to review the income tax system. To this end, he published an initial preamble in July 2022, which was welcomed with open arms by several entities in the Belgian financial ecosystem (economists, FEB, UCM, etc.). However, criticism came very quickly with the first actual proposal presented by his government. Indeed, it seems that this proposal departs from the initial preamble and does not respect the promises made in the preamble, the initial aim of which was to effectively reduce the tax burden on Belgian taxpayers.

Through this work, I am therefore providing a non-exhaustive, but broad, list of the alternatives for remunerating shareholder-managers. This enables me to draw up an assessment of the current situation. I then present the famous ministerial preamble and try to analyze it to understand how it might or might not influence the remuneration of shareholder managers if it were implemented. Given that it provides for a radical overhaul of the current system and introduces some important and controversial changes, including the abolition of several alternative remuneration practices, the taxation of all benefits of any kind based on their actual value, and the abolition of the liquidation reserve, etc., I have tried to understand how it might or might not influence the remuneration of shareholder-managers if it were implemented.

Finally, I ended my essay by answering my research question: how could shareholder managers adapt to the potential forthcoming tax reform? I set out to do this by providing some ideas for reducing their tax burden. I go on to give concrete solutions such as the use of tax benefits (supplementary pension savings, charging stations, gifts, etc.) but also investing abroad, the importance of putting in place a good tax strategy, and much more.