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Let us say that I have two residences, one in Belgium and the other one in France. Let us also say that I have in each country a bank account opened with a document issued in that country. If I receive a salary in each country for some part-time jobs while I split my life between the countries, what would the tax implications be? Would I be liable to pay French taxes from my French Salary and Belgian taxes from my Belgian salary (I assume everything withdrawn from the source already) or would I have to do something else? And, not willing to circumvent any law, but could the fiscal authority of each country get to realise that I have a bank account in the other country and tell me something about it?

I'm assuming at the moment that nothing would be wrong as long as I pay French taxes from my French salary and Belgian taxes from my Belgian salary, so no fraud or theft.

And if they get to realise that I have an other bank account, what could potentially trigger that?

Disclaimer: I'm not willing to commit any offense whatoever, I'm simply asking whether to keep everything separate in each country is possible

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The place where you keep your bank accounts has virtually nothing to do with your tax liability.

Your tax liability arises from what the taxing country says is subject to taxation. Generally, this must be disclosed in a tax return in which you affirm that you are telling the taxing jurisdiction everything that is relevant to their tax obligations.

Usually, your obligation to report your income to taxing authorities is backed up by a system of information reporting (by people other than or in addition to banks) under which people who make payments that are likely to be subject to taxation have to report making those payment to taxing authorities in some fashion or another.

While you do almost surely owe French taxes on a salary earned in France, and you do almost surely owe Belgian taxes on your Belgian income, this isn't the end of the story. Sometimes taxes are imposes on income other than salary, and sometimes taxes are imposed on extraterritorial salary. Often, even if extraterritorial income isn't taxed, it at least is relevant to determining what tax bracket you are in for your domestic income.

Tax laws are so varied from country to country that it is not meaningfully possible to analyze the question in the general case. You really need to know which taxing jurisdictions are involved, what kind of income you have, and other additional information relevant in any of those countries to your tax obligations.

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  • Ok, but how would each fiscal authority know that I have a bank account in the other country if I open each bank account with each country with its own delivered ID or residence permit?
    – abdul
    Commented Sep 24, 2021 at 5:50
  • @abdul Tax authorities don't rely entirely or even to any great degree on bank account information. They rely on information from people who provide you with taxable income.
    – ohwilleke
    Commented Sep 24, 2021 at 5:52
  • But what if these people do not know that I'm resident in an other country? Because if that's the case then also expats who do not register at their consulates whilst migrating, open a bank account and still have the old bank account in their own country would be subject to double imposition, and this does not happen.
    – abdul
    Commented Sep 24, 2021 at 5:59
  • So if I'm a citizen of A and I settle and build residence on B with my family, then I laterwards resettle on my own in neighbouring country C without letting A and B know, and entertain formalities in each country with its own delivered ID and all of this without the intent of committing tax evasion (I just want to keep everything separate), then all of sudden fiscal authorities of A, B and C will know that I have bank accounts in B and C?
    – abdul
    Commented Sep 24, 2021 at 6:10
  • @abdul Once again, bank accounts have nothing to do with anything. And, you are often committing illegal tax evasion if you don't tell taxing authorities. You are not legally allowed to just keep everything separate. The laws aren't that simple.
    – ohwilleke
    Commented Sep 24, 2021 at 15:36

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