Tax for a gift

Ask your bank if you are a dependant and it's money to live on I think you may well be ok

There is no tax on transfering money from abroad.

Just be careful of making big payments - any single transfer of over 10000 EUR can be frozen if it is suspected of being money laundering. You can get it back but you have to prove that it is legitimate money

Multiple payments will arouse suspicion too.

And there's the thing, how do you prove that all the money you have amassed in a life time is all legitimate? I've recently moved large amounts in preparation form leaving, and I have been asked questions every time that make little sense in regards to anti money laundering as the funds are leaving, not arriving.

But then given that the IMF has suggested that a one off wealth tax on bank deposits is a legitimate was to return to debt sustainability, would be seen as perfectly fair by many, would be acceptable if seen as definitely one time, and that the only problem is making it happen before people get time to hide their money, it should be no surprise than the main aim of the questioning was to make sure the money leaving stayed in my name.

Paranoid? The IMF document is very real, and so are the endless news articles in the Belgian press about the huge amount of wealth sitting in Belgian bank accounts.

Is there any way to legitimately move large amounts - e.g. you notify a future transfer of a gift to some authority?

You can legitimately move any amount of money, but I know of no way to make the money more legitimate. I also know that gifts are far from tax exempt once above certain amounts. If they were then nobody would pay inheritance tax. I start to get the feeling that the state wants my money and actually consider it their money, with me allowed restricted access to it, but don't let it get off their radar. Paranoid, me?......;-)

I had a UK insurance policy which matured and paid out something over €30K.
I notified my Belgian bank in advance and they advised that, so long as it was transferred from an obviously legitimate source - a major UK insurance company - there would be no problem.
And, some weeks later, the money arrived in my account here.
It seems that the banks have to have answers available should they be questioned as to their transactions; if the answers are reasonable there should not be any problems.

Reasonable answers? Having transferred some 390,000 to Pounds via Transferwise in recent weeks, I was asked where I got my money . Not one option fitted the truth and no matter how hard I looked, money laundering, fraud, prostitution etc were all absent from the list. It's all a bit of a joke, frankly. The only people who are going to get hassled are the innocent. Bit like the USA and its Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. The intended target is laughing while millions have been criminalised and forced to prove their innocence. The road to hell is truly paved with good intentions.