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Pensions Under the Belgium-U.S. Income Tax Treaty

2010-05-18

On April 30, 2010, the IRS announced that the competent authorities of Belgium and the U.S. have entered into an agreement regarding the types of pension plans that will be deemed to generally correspond to a “pension” under the Belgium-U.S. Income Tax Treaty (the “Treaty”).

Under the agreement, the types of pension plans established in the U.S. that will be treated as pension plans in Belgium include:

  • a qualified plan under Code § 401(a) (including a Code § 401(k) plan),
  • an individual retirement plan (including an individual retirement plan that is part of a simplified employee pension plan [“SEP IRA”] that satisfies Code § 408(k)), an individual retirement account [“IRA”], an individual retirement annuity, a Code § 408(p) [“SIMPLE IRA”] account, and a Roth IRA under Code § 408A,
  • a Code § 403(a) qualified annuity plan,
  • a Code § 403(b) plan,
  • a Code § 457(b) plan, and
  • the Thrift Savings Plan (Code § 7701(j)).

This type of agreement between the U.S. and its treaty partners is often necessary because U.S. tax treaties typically do not define the term “pension” within the treaty itself.

Tags: 402(b) Foreign Pensions, 894 Treaties