Individuals behind companies: to be declared to the UBO register!

On 16 October 2017, as you are doubtless aware, the new anti-money-laundering law came into force. The legislation provides for the following obligations:

• Companies, Belgian and international non-profit organisations, foundations and fiducies or trusts ('reporting agents') must collect and keep sufficient, accurate and up-to-date information about their ultimate beneficial owners.
• These reporting agents must also send information about the ultimate beneficial owners electronically to a 'register of ultimate beneficial owners' or 'UBO register' within one month. (This also applies if this information changes later on.)

A Royal Decree (RD) was still needed to spell out how the information will be collected and further details concerning access to and the use of the data in the UBO register. That RD was published in the annexes to the Belgian Official Gazette on 14 August 2018.

Information to be reported 

Companies will need to collect and communicate a considerable amount of information about their ultimate beneficial owners, including:

• first name and surname
• date of birth
• nationality
• address
• national registration number
• size of ultimate interest
• etc.

For indirect ultimate beneficial owners, the number of intermediaries and, for each of them, full identification data, including at least name, date of formation, commercial name, legal form, address of registered office and enterprise number (or comparable information for a foreign intermediary) must be supplied.

Belgian and international non-profit organisations, foundations, trusts, fiducies and similar legal entities are required to provide similar information about each of their ultimate beneficial owners.

Deadline

The information must be registered in the UBO register by 31 March 2019 at the latest, or within a month of any change to the information. It must in any case be updated every year.

Access to the register

Information about companies in the UBO register will be accessible to:

• the competent authorities (not just anti-money-laundering agencies but the tax authorities too)
• certain persons and entities such as notaries, lawyers, the National Bank and the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations/Deposito- en Consignatiekas
• any citizen, although for privacy reasons not all information will be shown.

There can be no doubt that the UBO register will contain information that is of great use to the tax authorities for building up a potential case against a taxpayer.

Access to information in the UBO register about Belgian and international non-profit organisations, foundations, trusts, fiducies and similar legal entities is more limited, in that anyone in the residual category ‘any other person or organisation' will have to prove a legitimate interest before gaining access to the details of these reporting agents.

Penalty

If the required information is not provided, the directors of the reporting agent may be charged an administrative fine of between €250 and €50,000.

How can you prepare?

The UBO register will enter into use on 31 October 2018. However, you can anticipate its entry into use by:

• checking which category of reporting agent your organisation belongs to (companies, non-profit organisations, trusts, etc.)
• gathering accurate information and documentation about your ultimate beneficial owners
• ensuring that someone within your organisation (a legal representative or attorney) with an e-ID is able to enter the requested information on behalf of your organisation via the electronic platform 'MyMinFin'
• putting in place procedures within your organisation so that any change to the information about your ultimate beneficial owners is reported to the UBO register within the month.

The above is a concise summary of the new rules and is therefore by no means comprehensive. More information may be obtained, for example, via the official website of FPS Finance.

You can of course also get in touch with your usual contact person at Grant Thornton for more information, advice or assistance in fulfilling the UBO obligations.