Personally, I believe the labour on tax is already too high and should be only decreased to reward people for their work. There is absolutely no space to increase it.
Furthermore, with upcoming retirement reforms there won't be much room to further increase retirement age, either.
With increasing deficit and given the abovementioned, it is high time to start discussion on the elephant in the room – the passive income of rich people in Belgium. Taxing wealth can generate billions while having no impact on working class. High time to tax second and third (and so on) apartment/house higher, tax income on rent higher, introduce proper capital gains tax (with exemption sum). It is incredible that my work is taxed at 40%, while rich people can rent multiple properties while paying many times lower taxes.
Crucially, all of this – for working class families with single apartment/house and limited assets (majority of Belgians) – will have literally no impact (no rent income, no second property, no large sum invested).
by absurdherowaw
28 comments
The goverment gets more then enough money already, the problem is waste/frivolous spending . You don’t put out a fire by throwing more fuel onto it.
Belgium generates the second most revenue per capita, only France does better, with taxes and contributions.
This is not about more revenue. This is about (among others) being too generous with benefits, letting everyone and their mother (literally lmao) in, funding every fart NGO, setting up rules that need enforcement through more government and then subsidizing stuff that said rules are going to be forced upon.
A second home is also not wealth imo, and taxing it will just further increase rent prices anyway.
as I have previously posted, the issue is not on the income side
and sure taxing landlords sounds great – do you rent OP? will your children? it will be a lot more expensive if they tax landlords, are you ready for netherlands-style rents?
and this is so funny “with limited assets but owning a house or apartment” those are pretty big assets, why shouldn’t a wealth tax tax the value of those then? oh maybe because now you’re affected OP?
The Belgian state is like an obese patient. First it has to go on a diet and only then it can think about surgery (read: additional taxes).
Or if it can magically find its free Ozempic we are all saved.
It’s funny how you consider welfare expenditure (pensions, chômage, etc..) as a given right to citizens . Maybe before increasing taxes, it would be lovely to do 0% deficit with the current state of fiscal policies.
When taxing wealth, beware also about the difference between the de iure tax payer and the de facto tax payer. If you consider housing or any other estate property, you can tax the owner, which as a result will drop the tax on the one renting it.
Then of course you can reply to me by going full USSR and say that renting prices must be decided by the government and enjoy the Breznev vibes…
One option is also to make the income side bigger by investing in the economy this can be done by cutting taxes or creating an environment that encourages entrepreneurship. Both things we are not doing atm.
A state can have deficits and make debts if it is for investments. Definition of an investment is that you will get a return in the future. Most of what we spend with our state doesn’t give any return and is not an investment.
It is even worse. We are borrowing money at an higher cost every year because we cannot cut our spending. Which means we are spending billions on repaying our debts with a huge interest.
Our social security is only funded for 50 % by RSZ and patronale bijdragen. That is the real problem. 13,5 % + 25 % every month for every worker is not enough.
No. Belgium is the third most heavily taxed country in Europe when it comes to wealth. What we really need is to cut costs.
There are only two ways our politicians know how to get money and that’s either raising/inventing new taxes or cut spending. There lies the problem. Anything alternative gets shot down by other politicians.
Or it can deduce spending, like the lowest hanging fruit: cut all bloody governments, merge all communes in Bxl and voila
Our government gets more than enough money, we need to drastically cut spending.
Fact it took this long to get a capital gains tax was crazy. Benefits will start rolling in, but it’s way too low. Raise it a bit higher.
The solution is a compromise – more wealth taxes are needed, but the situation in Brussels with 19 communes + bloated state is just a waste. Lots of public servants plus politicians and their staff are unnecessary at commune and even state level.
There should also be debate on the need for Wallonian and Flemish representation. It’s a country of 11 million people, you don’t need all these politicians around, and the cultural representation with lavish salaries and perks is just an indulgence.
A well-resourced and balanced local and federal government is enough to run the country this small. I don’t care if I’m an ignorant outsider, the French and Flemish stuff can be represented without needing to a pay a bunch of politicians and hangers on to deliver it.
There’s too many cops also standing around doing nothing in every part of the country, clearly surplus to requirements as well. Another cut.
A bit of deregulation (ie. In tech) wouldn’t hurt either. Maybe to supplement the pension, you could also have a mandatory private pension that employers must contribute to every year.
That private pension must in turn invest either in Belgium or overseas, like a quasi-wealth fund. There’s a both market and high tax/redistribution solution to these issues, but I don’t think people are serious enough to do what is necessary to solve it.
Within 10 years the economy would be pumping and you wouldn’t need to touch a single social program or health or education to make it happen.
The easy answer, tax the rich (which of course will be the first ones to transfer their wealth to another country)
Think the government as your home. For one reason or another, you are in debt. Credit cards, car, mortgage.
You are receiving new loans to finance your lifestyle. What would you do? Either find a much better job (increase your earnings) or cut spending or a combination.
Public transportation is very cheap in Belgium compared to other countries.
Employment rate. There are many people doing nothing. If they will start working, we will all benefit from it.
Cut spending. I love all these parks in Brussels and I want more, but maybe for a few years we should reduce public works.
We need to cut small and big.
People against taxing the ultra rich have no idea on how much money those people are sit.
Read this book from a professor at the University of Utrecht: https://www.uu.nl/en/in-de-media/what-is-limitarianism-professor-ingrid-robeyns-explains
The solution is not “more taxes” the solution is “better allocation”.
We’ve basically always had a deficit, unless [this](https://www.statista.com/statistics/328983/belgium-budget-balance-in-relation-to-gdp/) is wrong. Why should we change anything? We’ll just kick the can down the road for the next suckers
Cant wait what new taxes are we going to get….
Or a progressive tax on total wealth over a lifetime. Give people something to work for, not to pay for pensions at least.
Belgium should not start taxing more. It should start spending less.
Spending is more out balance than the “rich”. I think every member of society should contribute proportionate to its possibilities and yes some fiscal mechanisms are not fair.
But let’s look to where the money is going before we look where to get new money. I think we really should question our own expectations as citizens too and how realistic they are. We are in a inverted demographic pyramid. There are more people who don’t work than there are working. And its growing increasingly.
Still, we expect that government handles every situation for us. No work? Sick? Pregnancy? State of the art infrastructure? Public transport? Retirement
We expect all these things to be paid by government.
Besides that, bring 10 people in mind you know. Think of how many of these get paid by government, directly or indirectly. Think of officials, teachers, nurses,.. all are paid by government but hardly add up on economic growth, directly.
The “rich” you are eager to tax are the one that actually bring in the economic growth to keep paying all of above.
Maybe they should just spend less? Can we try that for once?
Ik vraag me af hoeveel geld we zouden kunnen besparen door te hakken op sociale woningen, ziekteverlof en werkloosheidsuitkeringen in plaats van de middenklasse nog meer te belasten alsof die nog niet genoeg belast wordt in dit land.
Insane how people still believe that more taxes is the answer to fix the deficit while we already have the highest taxes on the actual planet. Wealth is already severely taxed, and so is labour and BTW and inheritances and so forth …
The lack of basic logic baffles me tbh. If Belgium already receives the most money out of all countries on the planet Earth from the citizens who actually contribute to society, then how is a lack of contributions ( aka ‘taxes’) from these people ever the reason for the deficit? It either has to be a lack of people actually contributing ( unemployment rate and social benefits are through the roof btw, this is fact and not opinion) or either a spending problem. In belgium it is a combination of both.
Nor is it fair to expect contributing citizens to pay even more taxes than they already do. Working in belgium is becoming a modern form of slavery. Most of your wages already go towards someone else and it’s apparently never enough for some people. And if you manage to do good for yourself, whilst already paying a ridiculous amount of taxes in the process, then that has to apparently be taken from you with yet another tax on ‘wealth’.
Pure besparingspolitiek werkt ook niet.
Het moet een combinatie zijn van investeren en besparen.
Les fameux ingénieurs.
One issue even bigger than the rich not being wasted is our subsidies system which makes companies even less taxed than the rich.
Take fossil energy subsidies as an exemple. Today we spend 12B€/ year (2.5% of our GDP) on direct subsidies with 90% of them being tax exemptions/reductions on fossil fuel. You also have around 2.5B (0.5% of our GDP) in company car subsidies that only 15% of the workforce are eligible for (indirect subsidies).
In comparison, the subsidies for green energy or renovation to make housing less energy-consuming are **pathetic**. Some even no longer exist like grants for solar panels.
So we have subsidies for fossil fuel equal our entire defense budget (after BDW loans) and the subsidies meant to deprecate fossil fuel are … nowhere to be seen?
If this isn’t a corruption “gift” to energy companies or gross incompetence, idk what it is.
Well said OP, I fully agree!
Please not even more taxes. The more taxes, the more the government will spend, it will never be enough. Key is cutting expenses, I’m ok with less spending on social security etc.
Government shouldn’t be the solution and safety net for everything.
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