BELGIUM: A senior politician in Belgium, Mr Daniel Ducarme, resigned his post as head of the Brussels regional government yesterday after it emerged that he was at least four years behind with his tax returns and owed the taxman more than €250,000.
Various tax offices had begun to seek punitive fines amounting to more than €8,000 per month because of Mr Ducarme's continuing failure to lodge a return.
The minister announced his resignation a few hours after details of his tardiness were published in a Walloon newspaper, Vers L'Avenir. Mr Ducarme had failed to file a return for 1999. He was five months late with the 2000 declaration and has yet to file 2001, 2002 and 2003 returns.
In Belgium, members of parliament and ministers do not have their salaries taxed at source. In the absence of a declaration, the tax office decided to levy tax on the basis of Mr Ducarme's known revenues. The tax inspector of the town of Thuin, of which Mr Ducarme was mayor from 1988-2000, levied €184,000 for 1999-2001. The tax office of Schaerbeek, where Mr Ducarme has been a city councillor since 2000, decided he owed €56,300 plus €24,400 in penalties.
Eventually Thuin's tax office applied to the ministry of finance of the Brussels regional government, to dock the salary of its own minister-president.
In a brief resignation statement, Mr Ducarme said that the tax dossier was "a strictly private and personal matter". No element of fraud was involved, he said.
Mr Ducarme was one of the leading lights in the Walloon liberal party and was supposed to be heading the campaign for this summer's regional government elections. The scandal could harm the position of the Walloon liberals in the regional government, where they have held the industry portfolio looking after Charleroi airport, which includes the much disputed support for Ryanair, ruled illegal by the European Commission last week.