Belgian pension funds have paid too much tax on their returns in the last ten years. While their actual returns were on average only 3% a year, the tax authorities assumed fictional annual returns of 4.75%.

The Gazet van Antwerpen, Antwerp’s city newspaper, said that someone who started saving in 2001, aged 50, is paying taxes for returns they have never had. In the year when pension savers turn 60, they pay a 10% tax on the capital they would have built up if their fund had grown annually at 4.75%.

However, due to the technology crisis and the subsequent recession, the credit crisis and the debt crisis, the average growth since 2001 has only been 3% a year. At 5%, only the Argenta Pensioenspaarfonds had a higher return than the assumed return.

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