Hello everyone. My name is Peter Drey and welcome to this next episode of our

PWC Taxbytes podcast. Today we will talk about the new Belgian government and more specifically

about the corporate tax direct tax announcements in the government

agreement. I'm joined today by my colleagues, Michael Van Gehriechten and Matthias Bastian,

and with them we're going to reflect a little bit and discuss also the measures announced

in the government agreement and also what the impact can be for your business.

Indeed, end of September, after almost 500 days, seven political parties have reached an agreement

on the formation of a new Belgian government. We call this the Vivaldi government.

The objective is clear, relaunching Belgium and at a time when the COVID pandemic is further spreading in Belgium, this is a very important message.

There is an important package of a relance plan on the table, almost 4.7 billion of euros, so very important measures to relaunch Belgium with social accents. And on the corporate

tax side, there are also some elements in the agreement. I think important is that the large

reform, corporate income tax reform of 2017 is not going to be reviewed, revised.

That is important.

That was a positive reform, positive to support the Belgian economy, and especially in these

difficult times.

But, Mikhail, what is then on the table at this moment from a corporate tax perspective?

Hey, Peter, quite a bunch, actually.

Some only covering one line in the coalition agreement budget.

Firstly, it will come as no surprise that there's quite a bit of attention of the government

to further support other than companies that have been heavily impacted by the current COVID-19

pandemic and to help them recover from this crisis.

As such, on top of the earlier introduced carryback of tax losses,

...