On donating to effective and tax-deductible charities in Belgium

Lees hier de Nederlandstalige versie
Effective Altruism Belgium recommends donating to the top charities evaluated by GiveWell (for human health and development), Animal Charity Evaluators (for animal welfare), Let's Fund, Founders Pledge and Giving What We Can (for various causes such as climate change, biosecurity, AI-safety and long-term risks). However, it’s often unclear if your donation is tax-deductible in Belgium, since these organizations rarely have an office here. There are four ways to cope with this.

1. Donate without tax deductibility
The recommended charities can easily have a ten times higher impact per euro than most tax-deductible Belgian charities. This means that even a smaller donation to a top recommended charity without tax-deductibility can do more good than donating a larger amount to an average (not top recommended) tax-deductible Belgian charity.

2. Donate via
Transnational Giving Europe (TGE) and King Baudouin Foundation
This option is possible for the GiveWell top charity Against Malaria Foundation. Donations can be made via:
Account holder: Koning Boudewijnstichting, Brederodestraat 21 – 1000 Brussel
Bank: bpost bank
Bank account number: 000-0000004-04
IBAN: BE10 0000 0000 0404
BIC: BPOTBEB1

With the message: “TGE – UK – Against Malaria Foundation”.
Note that with TGE: “A 5% contribution will be deducted from the grant to help TGE encourage and facilitate cross-border donations. The tax certificate that the Foundation will send you in February of each following year will mention the total amount of the donation.” The disadvantage of those 5% additional costs is much smaller than the advantage of the tax-deductibility (usually 45%).
For more information, please contact King Baudouin Foundation – Transnational Giving Europe on tge@kbs-frb.be or by telephone at 02/5490231.

3. Donate to Belgian charities with a similar approach as international top charities 
More specifically we recommend donating to Eight (direct cash transfers) and ProVeg (formerly EVA, about plant-based food), as we described in this newsletter.

4. Help out fixing tax deductibility for charities
Charities with an office in Europe might be interested to hear from you and might consider registering at the Transnational Giving Europe network. We can provide you with information that can help convince them (a flyer of TGE and the administration to fill in).

We are also trying to figure out how to get a ruling for foreign charities. Any help would be most welcome!