probably the sunniest province of the Kingdom of the Netherlands ... www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/nt.html
I did some online research on this topic last week. Here is a list of countries that as far as I know, have 0% capital gains taxes: Switzerland, Belgium, Singapore, Hong Kong Germany was 0% unless the investment was held less than 6 months. Netherlands was not on the chart I viewed, so I have no info about Netherlands. Surprisingly, Canada has no lowered the capital gains tax to only 50% treatment as regular income, so now you only get taxed on half your profits, the other half is tax free. This is good for me, but I would prefer a country like Belgium with no capital gains taxes at all. I have many relatives in Belgium. I wonder if I could move there for a year, get a minor part time job in their bakery business, and then trade full time tax free because I would be taxed under the Belgium tax system for the time I "worked" in Belgium.
Don't believe you can be taxed in Belgium: this is only true for investors, but there exist taxes on "speculative gains". Futures-trading gains will definitely be in this categorey. The law is not very clear on this, but you will loose this battle with the local IRS for sure. A belgian futures trader.
should be ... can't be taxed. Speculative gains are treated like this because they are seen as a businesslike activity. It is like pornography: they can't define it clearly, but they sure recognize it when they see it. It is my understandig that most European countries have something like this as a kind of last reserve for taxing people anyway, so be carefull before jumping to any conclusions.
I'm no expert in law so I don't know about other countries: but in Belgium the way to judge is is looking at your leverage and frequency. There is no doubt that daytrading falls into the categorie of "speculative gains". If you get taxed as a business in company you will get better tax-rate will be better however. (that's the way I do it) and it's much easier to deduct several things as a costs for running your business.
http://www.minfin.nl/default.asp?CMS_ITEM=MFCR3713314F2708211D5BFFF00104B3FBE32 This document from the ministry of Finance confirmes Ditch's statement.