Betterment Tax for foreign residents on the sale of an entitled residential apartment, in light of the reform in the Land Taxation Law

In my previous article I reviewed the recent major changes in the Land Taxation Law (Betterment and Purchase), 5723 – 1963 (hereinafter: the "Land Taxation Law"), regarding the purchase tax that will apply to foreign residents.

Significant and broad changes apply with regard to the grounds for exemption from the payment of betterment tax on the sale of a residential apartment, which is an entitled to a tax exemption. Some of the changes apply equally to Israeli residents and foreign residents, on the one hand (also on the purchase of an apartment) ; but on the other hand some of these changes also result in preferential treatment for individual sellers of an apartment in Israel over foreign residents. The changes in the Land Taxation Law with regard to the sale of an entitled residential apartment came into effect on January 1, 2014.

The purpose of this short article is to briefly clarify the key changes that have taken place in land taxation on the sale of residential apartments in Israel in respect of foreign residents.

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New Voluntary Disclosure Procedure by the Israeli Tax Authority

On September 7, 2014 in continuance to the Israeli Government’s policy to fight “black” money and to increase the collection of taxes in Israel, the Israeli Tax Authority published a New Voluntary Disclosure Procedure that allows a taxpayer to report his/her non-reported income to the tax authority with the possibility to be exempt from criminal proceedings for not reporting.

The New Voluntary Disclosure Procedure came into force on the day of publication and will be in effect until December 31, 2016.

With the New Voluntary Disclosure Procedure the Tax Authority published Temporary Rules, a special temporary order, which will be in effect for a period of one year until September 6, 2015.

The Temporary Rules are setting forth two new optional routes:

1. Anonymous Procedure
2. Special route for small accounts
   1. Anonymous application

The Temporary Rules allow taxpayers to submit an application for Voluntary Disclosure on an anonymous basis.

According to this procedure the taxpayer submits his/her application without indicating his/her name to the Israeli Tax Authority’s criminal department. The application should include all information relevant to the disclosure, including information showing to which fiscal year the disclosure is related, the origin of the capital, the origin of the income, details as to the amount of income and a calculation of the tax to be paid. With the application the taxpayer submits all relevant documents and statements to support the information specified in his/her application.

Within 90 days the relevant local tax office will inspect and agree on the final tax liability. After this period with a possible extension of another 90 days the taxpayer is required to provide his/her personal details including his/her name to the Israeli Tax Authority for the purpose of completion of the voluntary disclosure. The taxpayer will reveal his identity only if the final terms are acceptable to him. If the taxpayer does not disclose his/her personal details the application for the voluntary disclosure will be dismissed.

The E-2 Investor Visa To The U.S.

Ira S. Katz, The Katz Law Group P.C. 

The United States has entered into treaties with several countries including Israel and established the E-2 investor visa to allow businesspeople from those countries to work in the United States for a business in which people from their country have invested. (The authorization for this visa comes from the Immigration and Nationality Act atI.N.A.§ 101(a)(15)(E), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(E); the corresponding regulations are at8 C.F.R. § 214.2(e); 22 C.F.R. § 41.51.)

While there has been great anticipation since the signing of the treaty between Israel and the United States regarding the E-2 visa, as of the writing of this brief article, the E-2 visa has not as of yet been implemented for Israel.

Below is a general description of the E-2 visa and its applicability. Each treaty country differs in its applicable rules and implementation. 

Key Features of the E-2 Visa

I shall begin, actually, from the end: a vacation apartment is not a residential apartment. A vacation apartment does not constitute a residential apartment that is entitled for a Betterment Tax benefit and whoever sells a vacation apartment will be liable to pay the entire sum of land Betterment Tax(Betterment Tax is Capital gains tax on real estate). Anyone who acquires a vacation apartment does not acquire a residential apartment apropos the matter of Purchase Tax (rephrase) but rather a different right. Obviously, there are two sides to this matter, one of the sides is that ….. and the other side is that anyone who owns a vacation apartment is not considered as being the owner of an ‘additional’ apartment in respect to Betterment Tax or in respect to Purchase Tax.

What appears to be trivial, is obviously really not so.

Judgments that were given early last year regarding vacation apartments and taxation on the sale and purchase thereof – as well as cases that were handled by our office – led us to think that we should shed some light on this issue. In addition, the frequent increases in the tax rates on the purchase and sale of apartments as well as uncertainty in terms of taxes on residential apartments and the  ownership thereof, makes the matter of residential apartments a very worthwhile channel of investment that should be considered; especially in view of the fact that ownership of a vacation apartment (like all other land rights) does not turn the owners into owner of multiple residential apartments, and tax on the acquisition thereof is 6% from the entire amount, compared with 8% and 10% when purchasing an additional residential apartment.

There are several tax aspects of vacation apartments which require legal reference, amongst which:  annual maintenance fees, the use of the vacation apartment, that is, vacation apartments that are used as residential dwellings despite their purpose being as vacation apartments – as in the Herzliya Blue Island affair – and the taxation on vacation apartments when they are being purchased or sold.

This short article shall focus on the taxation when acquiring or selling a vacation apartment.