ARTICLE 19 (STUDENTS, TRAINEES, TEACHERS AND RESEARCHERS)

This Article provides rules for host-country taxation of visiting students, business trainees, teachers and researchers. Persons who meet the tests of the Article will be exempt from tax in the State that they are visiting with respect to designated classes of income. Paragraph 1 addresses payments received by a student or business trainee, while paragraph 2 addresses teachers and researchers temporarily present in the host country.

Paragraph 1

Subparagraph (a) addresses the situation where a student or business trainee that is a resident of a Contracting State receives certain payments other than for personal services, while present in the host State. Several conditions must be satisfied for such an individual to be exempt from host country taxation.

First, the student or business trainee must have been, either at the time of his arrival in the host State or immediately before, a resident of the other Contracting State.

Second, the purpose of the visit must be the full-time education or full-time training of the visitor. Thus, if the visitor comes principally to work in the host State but also is a part-time student, he would not be entitled to the benefits of this Article, even with respect to any payments he may receive from abroad for his maintenance or education, and regardless of whether or not he is in a degree program. Whether a student is to be considered full-time will be determined by the rules of the educational institution at which he is studying.

The host-country exemption in subparagraph (a) applies to payments received by the student or business trainee for the purpose of his maintenance, education or training that arise outside the host State. A payment will be considered to arise outside the host State if the payer is located outside the host State. Thus, if an employer from one of the Contracting States sends an employee to the other Contracting State for training, the payments the trainee receives from abroad from his employer for his maintenance or training while he is present in the host State will be exempt from tax in the host State. Where appropriate, substance prevails over form in determining the identity of the payer. Thus, for example, payments made directly or indirectly by a U.S. person with whom the visitor is training, but which have been routed through a source outside the United States

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( e.g., a foreign subsidiary), are not treated as arising outside the United States for this purpose.

Subparagraph (1) (b) also provides a limited exemption for remuneration from personal services rendered in the host State with a view to supplementing the resources available to him for such purposes to the extent of $9,000 United States dollars (or its equivalent in euro) per taxable year. The competent authorities are instructed to adjust this amount every five years, if necessary, to take into account changes in the amount of the U.S. standard deduction and personal exemption and the Belgian basic allowance.

In the case of a business trainee, the benefits of paragraph 1 will extend only for a period of two years from the time that the visitor first arrives in the host country. If, however, a trainee remains in the host country for a third year, thus losing the benefits of the Article, he would not retroactively lose the benefits of the Article for the first two years. Supbaragraph 1(c) defines the term "business trainee" as a person who is in the country temporarily for the purpose of securing training that is necessary to qualify to pursue a profession or professional specialty. Moreover, a business trainee also includes an individual who is employed or under contract with a resident of the other Contracting State and is temporarily present in the host State for the primary purpose of receiving technical, professional, or business experience from a person other than his employer or a person related to its employer. Thus, a business trainee might include a lawyer employed by a law firm in one Contracting State who works for two years as a stagiare in an unrelated law firm in the other Contracting State. However, the term would not include a manager who normally is employed by a parent company in one Contracting State who is sent to the other Contracting State to run a factory owned by a subsidiary of the parent company.

Paragraph 2

Paragraph 2 provides an exemption from host State taxation for teachers and researchers. Under paragraph 2 an individual who is a resident of a Contracting State at the beginning of his visit to the other Contracting State (i.e., host State), and who is temporarily present in the host State for the purpose of teaching or carrying on research at a school, college, university or other educational or research institution is exempt from host Sate taxation for a period not exceeding 2 years from the person’s arrival in the host State on the person’s remuneration received in consideration of teaching or carrying on research. However, the benefits of paragraph 2 do not apply to income from research if such research is undertaken primarily for the private benefit of a specific person or persons.

Relationship to other Articles

The saving clause of paragraph 4 of Article 1 (General Scope) does not apply to this Article with respect to an individual who is neither a citizen of the host State nor has been admitted for permanent residence there. The saving clause, however, does apply with respect to citizens and permanent residents of the host State. Thus, a U.S. citizen who is a resident of Belgium and who visits the United States as a full-time student at an accredited university will not be exempt from U.S. tax on remittances from abroad that

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otherwise constitute U.S. taxable income. A person, however, who is not a U.S. citizen, and who visits the United States as a student and remains long enough to become a resident under U.S. law, but does not become a permanent resident ( i.e., does not acquire a green card), will be entitled to the full benefits of the Article.