Top executive at Nestlé Capital Advisors, Jean-Pierre Steiner, explained that they looked at all of the European tax regimes and decided Belgium is unbeatable when it comes to siting a central location for a pan-European pension fund. Nestlé is the world’s largest food company. It had a turnover of EUR 60.5 million in 2006.

The Belgian government recently created a flexible legal and fiscal context for pension funds domiciled in Belgium. From now on they have to be incorporated in the legal framework of an Organization for Financing Pensions (OFP). There are many advantages to this: an OFP is exempt from the special annual estate tax of 0.17 percent on the pension funds' assets at January 1st of each year and it is subject to corporate tax on an alternative, more tax-efficient basis. Finally, it will be able to credit interest and dividend withholding tax against corporate tax due and excess withholding taxes are refundable. (reported by De Tijd newspaper)

More info: Nestlé