What is a periodic VAT return?
A periodic VAT return reports your business transactions to the Federal Public Service Finance (FPS Finance) and determines whether you owe VAT to the state or are entitled to a refund. It covers two things:
The value of transactions carried out with your clients and the VAT due on them
The value of incoming transactions with your suppliers or service providers and the deductible VAT
The return shows the difference between the VAT due and the deductible VAT. If the balance is in favour of VAT due, you owe that amount to the state. If the balance is in favour of deductible VAT, the state owes you a refund. For more detail on the rules, see the official FPS Finance page on periodic VAT returns.
Please note that this article provides general guidance only. Tax rules may vary depending on your individual situation. When in doubt, ask your Tax Coach.
How does Accountable calculate your VAT return?
The Belgian tax administration assigns a specific code to each VAT category. Accountable processes each invoice or expense receipt and adds it to the correct category based on that code number. Here is an example of what an auto-generated VAT return looks like in Accountable:
The categories appear on the left, the relevant VAT code in the middle, and the accumulated values on the right. Click on a specific row to see the full breakdown of that amount, as shown below:
Once the return is generated, you can export it directly from Accountable and import it into the Intervat platform to file your VAT return.
Note: When you file your VAT return on Intervat, the codes shown in Accountable match the codes you see on Intervat.
Key takeaways
A periodic VAT return tells FPS Finance how much VAT you collected and how much you can deduct.
The difference determines whether you pay VAT to the state or receive a refund.
Accountable automatically assigns each invoice and expense to the correct VAT code category.
You can export the generated return from Accountable and import it directly into Intervat.
Need help? Chat with us or email support@accountable.eu, we're happy to help.