Choosing well
What to know: Chartered accountants and bookkeepers in the province of Antwerp
The port puts VAT in the front row
A business that imports or exports asks different questions from a local shop. Intra-community supplies, proof of transport, the quarterly listing and the chain-transaction rules become the core of the file rather than a special case. To that is added an authorisation few general accountants handle: import VAT deferment, known as the ET 14,000 licence, which lets a business avoid paying VAT at customs and account for it in the periodic return instead. On regular import volumes that is a cash-flow difference counted in tens of thousands of euros.
Diamonds have a tax of their own
Antwerp remains the world's diamond trading centre, and since 2016 the sector has fallen under a derogating tax regime, often called the carat regime: a trader's taxable base is set on a flat-rate basis from turnover, precisely because valuing the stock proved impossible to audit. It is a regime found nowhere else in Belgium, and not one a practice handles by accident.
The Kempen, a different trade
To the north and east the economy changes in nature: family businesses, industrial subcontracting, construction, horticulture. The dominant question is no longer international VAT but succession, how to pass a company to the next generation without emptying it. The Flemish Region applies a reduced rate of gift and inheritance duty to the transfer of family businesses, subject to shareholding and continuity conditions that are prepared years ahead. There too, the file is built before it becomes urgent.
Support that differs from elsewhere
Because the province is Flemish, businesses fall under VLAIO for investment grants and VDAB for employment, with instruments of their own such as the KMO-portefeuille, which subsidises training and outside advice. A company moving a few kilometres into Walloon Brabant or Brussels changes counter, scale and calendar.
The working language
The province is Dutch-speaking only: deeds, the annual accounts and dealings with the administration are in Dutch. The port nevertheless brings international clients, and some of the practices in this list also work in English. As everywhere, a professional's title can be checked against the public register of the ITAA.