>I must have misunderstood this somehow, because this is just too idiotic otherwise.
You did misunderstood. Belgium incorrectly offered tax aid to companies and now it's required to rectify it, hence said companies must pay what is legally required.
You did misunderstood. Belgium incorrectly offered tax aid to companies and now it's required to rectify it, hence said companies must pay what is legally required.
OK, that's reasonable.
> hence said companies must pay what is legally required.
And here I get a huge WTF. If someone gave me money that he couldn't give me (for example, he stole it), I'm not required to give it back — he is.
Why isn't Belgium held responsible for it's actions?
What's happening here is that the person never had the legal right to give you that money. So you're in factual possession of money that you don't - can't - legally own.
This is not a fine, it is a tax correction. These happen all the time, especially with complex tax structures that multinational businesses use.
OK, this explanation finally makes sense to me. Thanks.
Actually, this is not how the world works. If you buy stolen goods, you're liable, and they can be taken away from you (in Italy, you can actually get fined for buying stolen goods!)
I think you can be fined for _knowingly_ buying stolen goods everywhere.
But what about stolen money? That could've gone away in series of thousands of transactions with thousands of counter-agents since it was stolen?
If someone gave me money that he couldn't give me (for example, he stole it), I'm not required to give it back — he is.
Another example is banks- sometimes it comes up that banks accidentally credit people's accounts with huge sums in error. This money does not belong to those people, and if they withdraw it, the banks can take legal action to get it back.
(it doesn't quite map across directly, because EU federalism is less central than US federalism; in particular the EU has no direct tax powers, and we haven't had the Federalism civil war yet)
It has to be like that or laundering stolen money/goods becomes trivially easy - just give it to a third party and later on they give it back to you or to an entity that would benefit you.