All articles · 2026-04-10 · Taxation
Taking money out of your company without taxing yourself poor
Making a profit in your company feels like winning. Until you want to transfer that money to your private accounts. Then the real game begins, and there…
By Jan Hermans, CEO & founder of Lyff.
Dividend sounds smarter, but isn't always
Then often comes the second reflex: dividends. That already sounds smarter. But there's friction there too. First you pay corporate tax, and then also withholding tax [roerende voorheffing]. Or you opt for favourable regimes like VVPR-bis or a liquidation reserve [liquidatiereserve], but then you trade tax optimization for time. Years of waiting to get a lower rate. Not exactly convenient if you need resources today.
Does that mean dividends and everything around them are bad? Absolutely not. The conviction that there is one “best way” to take money out of your company is incorrect. It doesn't exist.
What do you need, and when?
What does exist is an optimal combination, but only if you start from your situation, not from one particular technique.
The first question is timing. When do you need the money? Soon? In a few years? Can you leave it be? That difference alone determines whether certain paths are even sensible. Then comes the objective. Do you want to maximize net income today, or do you want to build up assets towards retirement? These are two totally different strategies. Trying to maximize both simultaneously requires custom work that you should discuss with a party that is up-to-date on what's happening in terms of taxation.
Besides that, there's something else that surprisingly few entrepreneurs consider: what you want to do outside your company. Banks look at your salary, not your tax optimization. Anyone who wants to buy real estate or needs credit cannot afford to completely minimize their salary. What seems “smart” fiscally, can financially block you.
That's the level at which the game is played. Not at the level of “salary versus dividend”, but at the level of coherence.
How Lyff. takes a fundamentally different approach
And that's exactly where, in our opinion, many entrepreneurs use and appreciate our support.
Instead of pushing one solution, our experts look at how everything works together within the framework of your goals. Your salary is not maximized, but adjusted: high enough to support your rights and financing possibilities, low enough not to pay unnecessary tax. Dividend streams are not paid out ad hoc, but planned, with attention to timing, rates, and your concrete cash needs. Mechanisms like VVPR-bis or liquidation reserve [liquidatiereserve] are only used when they actually play to your advantage, not because they would be “best practice”.
On top of that, your pension accumulation is integrated into the whole. Not as a separate product, but as part of the same strategy: reducing tax burden today, while building up assets for later.
What remains is not a theoretical tax plan, but one simple question: how much net do you keep, and when?
That is the only metric that counts. As an entrepreneur, you deserve better remuneration for the effort and risks you take every day.
Interested in a free, no-obligation conversation with one of our experts? Make your appointment now!
The remuneration mix as a strategic lever
In my book Fiscale Shortcuts voor managementvennootschappen, I often emphasize the concept of the control room. Your management company is not a static entity, but a panel with different sliders: salary, dividend, reserves, and pension accumulation. Anyone who only adjusts one knob, for example by keeping the salary extremely low to save corporate tax, unconsciously blocks other possibilities. A salary that is too low, in fact, mortgages your pension space via the 80-percent rule. This rule states that your total pension accumulation may not exceed 80 percent of your last normal gross annual salary. Less salary today therefore means less tax-deductible saving for later.
A concrete example from practice: an entrepreneur who keeps his salary at 45,000 euros and pays out the rest via dividends, builds up an IPT capital of approximately 531,000 euros. By cleverly adjusting the mix and, for example, integrating a warrant plan monthly, the relevant salary basis increases. This allows the annual pension premium to go up, which can result in an end capital of more than 1.2 million euros. Same effort, totally different result at the finish line.
Internal financing and real estate
Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of financing private real estate with net salary that has first been heavily taxed. In Lyff.'s logic, we prefer to look at internal financing. Why would you repay private capital with euros on which 50 percent tax has already been paid? Through techniques such as a bullet credit linked to your IPT, you can finance the capital accumulation of your home with gross money from the company. You only pay the interest privately, while the company builds up the capital through tax-deductible premiums. This often yields an advantage of hundreds of thousands of euros over the entire term.
Do you want to know which mechanisms yield the most return for your specific case? In my book, I go deeper into these mechanisms. You can read more about these strategies in Fiscale Shortcuts voor managementvennootschappen.
Frequently asked questions
What is the ideal salary for a business manager?
The ideal salary does not exist, but it must be defensible according to the Gaussian curve: not extremely high, but also not so low that it harms your pension accumulation and creditworthiness with the bank. We look for a salary that is high enough to maximize your social rights and pension space, supplemented with net-optimized techniques such as expense allowances and warrants.
Are liquidation reserves [liquidatiereserves] always the best choice for surpluses?
Not necessarily. Although the rate of 10 percent plus a limited withholding tax [roerende voorheffing] is attractive, your money is tied up for three to five years. In times of inflation, this money loses purchasing power. Sometimes it is more interesting to invest this capital within the company via a branch 6 [tak 6] structure, so that the return compensates for the tax cost of a later distribution.