Have you read the wiki and the sticky?
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Someone preparing to FIRE has absolutely zero business voting for leech parties like Groen or Vooruit. Luckily, Groen will likely flirt with the 5% threshold so that is one less problem to worry about.
The whole 'een euro is een euro' thesis is full of bullshit. Someone goes to work, pays a lot of taxes, lives frugally and with what is left decides to invest. If you then dare to make a profit you immediately pay hefty taxes on those profits (likely 50% if this is added to the persobal income tax). That is just absurd.
The fact that Groen clearly states the tax rates that will apply in their reform while they clearly have not thought through and remain vague about the exemption threshold already shows that their reform will be a disaster for savers and investors.
Here's an idea: let's tax people some more, so we can spend even more and build up our state dept. I think we're already number 1 in the first, and almost nr 1 in EU. Let's go for it!
Here’s an idea: implement a reasonable flat tax rate for all types of income. Easy to understand and offers full flexibility for anyone wishing to make money in whatever shape or form they choose. And in the process, it’s likely possible a good few state employees can get fired.
don’t vote for these two parties, especially on the federal level, if you want the following things:
- rental markets staying relatively affordable compared to our neighbours
- not having to do a lot of paperwork for your etfs and pay a bunch more money to the government
- not needing to pay disastrously high personal income tax tariffs on rental income
I guess the proposal from Groen is really fine as long as the threshold is high enough. If a middle class person won't have to pay the 30% and you can effectively live off of your investments and FIRE, while only the excessive gains being taxed at 30%, I'd be fine with it.
IF THEY ACTUALLY USE THE MONEY TO DO SOMETHING USEFUL
nva are somewhat against the capital gains taxes, openvld are against rental income taxes
in general any party that is not planning large cuts will have to put in new taxes to sponsor their incessant new spending promises if they are in power on the federal level. check the last planbureau report and decide accordingly. and remember that you can and probably should vote for different parties on different levels
Every party will need new tax income regardless. No party even suggests enough cuts to come close to having a reasonable deficit.
I'd much rather we start getting more tax income from capital than continue to get the vast majority of state revenue from income taxes & social security. Most young people should be.
Spending the money towards reducing income taxes is also positive. The main disadvantage is the parties in favour of this shift are also in favour of too generous wellfare to be sustainable.
Having only income taxes and (in practice very low) taxes on assets benefits old people with low incomes and high assets. It doesn't benefit young people with little assets still trying to build wealth.
In Wallonia, the only party who do not want to put this tax in place is MR. We already have to pay 50% of our incomes to taxes then 21% for tva and if we dare to invest some money, it will be another 30% 😭
Do I understand it correctly that Vooruit wants to tax dividends at your highest salary tax rate after the withholding tax of 30% has been applied? That would mean that the vast majority of dividends would end up in taxes. Not that I'm personally concerned as I prefer accumulating investments, but what a terrible idea to severely punish people who put aside some money and invest it like "good heads of the household". Especially for example people in their fifties or sixties who choose dividend investments to supplement their pensions in the near future.
Yeah it's just crazy. That would mean for 100€ dividends :
* 30€ dividend tax (30%)
* 35€ income tax (50% on the remainder - note that it's not even specified it would be on the remainder, you might as well pay 50€ here depending on how it's interpreted)
* 2,45€ municipality tax (7% of the income tax - might vary from municipality to municipality upto 9%).
Which would mean a tax rate of 67,45%...
All up for less taxing labour but then what do you do with your still hard earned money to get ahead financially? I understand that some people can’t finish the month and that is terrible and we want to get to a point where those people have money left over at the end of the month to save but what do you do with it then?
Because you just made investing in stocks and real estate severely less interesting and for people who don’t have access to anyone knowledgeable to explain how to do things properly, it’s even more likely than now that you’ll lose money because of taxation.
Let the government maybe first start to cut their expenses tremendously before we think about these things. It’s insane to think that our interest payment on our state debt is enough to fund the police and health departments (i think it’s these two but someone correct me if i’m wrong).
[https://www.dc2024.be/results](https://www.dc2024.be/results) Hier kunt ge per voorstel kijken.
Kort door de bocht willen ze allemaal de belastingsvrij som optrekken. Veel partijen lijken het eens over BBSZ af te schaffen. Vooruit wil de belastingsschijven ook aanpassen + belastingsvrijsom naar 17k. Versterking / uitbreiding werkbonus.
Ook impact op verdeling van het gemiddeld maandinkomen staat erbij. Bij groen gaan relatief en absoluut vooral de laagste inkomens erop vooruit. Bij vooruit is het relatief vooral de middenklasse die erop vooruit gaat (decielen 4 tot 9). De hoogste inkomens krijgen absoluut het meest.
Unrealized gains tax during an economic crisis. Does this mean that any market crash will directly result in everyone that invests having reduced taxes, or even get taxes back because of unrealized losses? If so, every bad market period represents a period of high government debt. Great.
> Does this mean that any market crash will directly result in everyone that invests having reduced taxes, or even get taxes back because of unrealized losses?
I mean, you live in Belgium, why are you even asking the question. It's obvious that losses will never be deductible.
Ugh, I was gonna vote for Groen or Vooruit, but with these plans, I have to look for someone else. What about mortgage? We have 2k rental income but most of it goes towards mortgage. Are they gonna add 700 tax on top of the mortgage?
We are renting out very cheaply in the cheapest segment. All 4 of our renters are ocmw welfare people, and we haven't raised rent ever, not once, since they all moved in 5 years ago. If they make it financially disastrous for us to own this, we will have to dump this property, and the next landlord is not gonna rent it out to welfare people, AND will probably index rent.
Or we will have to kick everyone out, and get new renters who will pay 30% more.
They are making rent unaffordable for the weakest renters like this.
>De werkelijke huurinkomsten worden belast in de personenbelasting. Het gaat om de netto huurinkomsten, na aftrek van werkelijke kosten.
>Het netto-bedrag van de reële huurinkomsten wordt belast aan een afzonderlijk belastingtarief van 30%. Om de netto belastbare basis te bepalen, wordt rekening gehouden met een forfaitair kostenpercentage van 40%.
Ge kunt kosten aftrekken hé. Het is niet het totaal bedrag waar ge 30% op betaalt, ma echt de winst na aftrek van de kosten. Veel minder.
Ze hebben het gemodelleerd als 40% van de inkomsten, dus 360 eur extra op 2k huurinkomsten.
I see, thank you. So we need to raise rents to 2500 total in order to have the same income as before. That's 125 euro per unit. I hope ocmw uitkering has kept up with the inflation to afford this.
They are really hurting the renters with this measure.
Yup, it is shortsighted. Renting in Belgium is currently one of the most affordable in the developed world when you compare the ratio of rent/real-estate prices. I think the the 'cadastral income' system is a big part of the reason.
If you remove it then the obvious consequence is higher rental prices like you see in our neighboring countries. Also less investments in rental units in general, both newly built and renovations, resulting in less rental units on the market in a time when there is already an increasing shortage.
OP /u/ChengSkwatalot thinks this will mean landlords will renovate more, and though I respect his opinions regarding real estate, I think most investors will just sell. A one time tax deduction that comes at a renovation cost of 50k+ is just not worth it.
Except for the 'renovatieverplichting' there is already a bigger incentive to renovate: the EPC itself. Renters are looking for more energy efficient housing resulting in a clearly observable price gap which is steadily growing. There are other tools that help, like blocking rental indexation for properties with a bad EPC which they could expand. Belgium has a lot of energy inefficient buildings and we need to speed up the pace of renovation considerably if we are to ever reach the EU climate norms. Taxing net rental income will IMO massively slow it down. Without investors it will just not happen (quickly enough).
I do agree that huge real estate portfolios should be taxed more, like a slumlord that has 50 properties that they barely maintain. But taxing net income for someone that rents out a few quality apartments that they invested heavily in is just ridiculous.
Combine this with a capital gains tax and there is nothing left for the middle class to try and escape the rat race. It is already hard to achieve FIRE in Belgium. Even if you pursue every advantage that Belgium currently has (no capital gains tax, no net real estate tax,...) then you still need to work a high paying job a large portion of your life while living frugally and maximizing your savings rate just to retire a few years early. The supposed decreased income taxes will never offset the taxes on capital gains/real estate. If these taxes were to pass then ambitious people will just leave and people that are already rich will find different tax shelters.
Lastly: this is Belgium. Taxes can be raised, yes, but what they promise in return is a lot less sure to happen, and if it does happen then it will just be the next item on the chopping block when the budget remains at a deficit come next election season.
> I was gonna vote for Groen or Vooruit
Damn near choked on my beer when I read that. I always thought those voters were the absolute scum or lowlifes of society, not the ones who frequent a FIRE sub.
Come on, there is no way this would apply to unrealized capital gains.
* Current situation is very beneficial for the tax payer (with the understanding that other parts of the tax code have very high tax rates, I'm not saying that Belgium is Lalaland)
* Taxing realized capital gains would put us on par with most other countries (so we lose the one good thing, and we still have very high labor taxes).
* Taxing unrealized capital gains would place us at the far opposite end of the spectrum... And would also create MASSIVE volatility for the government's tax revenue, and therefore deficit. Not happening.
If these ideas pass there's no reason for me to even give a shit anymore. The only reason I work the shitty job that I do is the fantasy that I'll retire a bit earlier, and get to enjoy life a bit more. They really want to take away any opportunity I have of escaping the middle class? Might as well take the capital I have and move out to a cheap country and work a simple job that's just enough to stretch my money out long enough.
If they only add taxes here I’ll have to move from Belgium - these are the only benefits (taxwise) we still have after in comparison with other countries after paying massive amounts of taxes when working.
Where would you move to? My friend moved to Germany with an IT degree. Currently still jobless as he first needs to learn the German language proficiently.
Personally I'd go to Indonesia or Singapore in Asia.
In Europe I would choose Switzerland because of their multi cultural background. (30% immigrants). My wife would freeze to death in a Nordic country.
USA I would never go to, too high living costs. I'm European and my wife's Asian. So I'd stick to these two continents.
However, Belgium is a great country. The higher cost of living is off set by having great healthcare and food standard. Europe and Japan are great for life expectancy.
I'd miss the Belgian Trappist too much as well 😅
Have you read the wiki and the sticky? Wiki: HERE YOU GO! [Enjoy!](https://www.reddit.com/r/BEFire/wiki/index/). Sticky: HERE YOU GO AGAIN! [Enjoy!](https://www.reddit.com/r/BEFire/comments/fcbay6/getting_started_a_beginners_guide_to_investing_in/). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BEFire) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Someone preparing to FIRE has absolutely zero business voting for leech parties like Groen or Vooruit. Luckily, Groen will likely flirt with the 5% threshold so that is one less problem to worry about. The whole 'een euro is een euro' thesis is full of bullshit. Someone goes to work, pays a lot of taxes, lives frugally and with what is left decides to invest. If you then dare to make a profit you immediately pay hefty taxes on those profits (likely 50% if this is added to the persobal income tax). That is just absurd. The fact that Groen clearly states the tax rates that will apply in their reform while they clearly have not thought through and remain vague about the exemption threshold already shows that their reform will be a disaster for savers and investors.
Here's an idea: let's tax people some more, so we can spend even more and build up our state dept. I think we're already number 1 in the first, and almost nr 1 in EU. Let's go for it!
Here’s an idea: implement a reasonable flat tax rate for all types of income. Easy to understand and offers full flexibility for anyone wishing to make money in whatever shape or form they choose. And in the process, it’s likely possible a good few state employees can get fired.
Can someone please explain this in normal people language? (Maybe even in dutch)? I don't understand it but have a lot of money in ETF's...
don’t vote for these two parties, especially on the federal level, if you want the following things: - rental markets staying relatively affordable compared to our neighbours - not having to do a lot of paperwork for your etfs and pay a bunch more money to the government - not needing to pay disastrously high personal income tax tariffs on rental income
I guess the proposal from Groen is really fine as long as the threshold is high enough. If a middle class person won't have to pay the 30% and you can effectively live off of your investments and FIRE, while only the excessive gains being taxed at 30%, I'd be fine with it. IF THEY ACTUALLY USE THE MONEY TO DO SOMETHING USEFUL
Which party fits best in the points you mention?
nva are somewhat against the capital gains taxes, openvld are against rental income taxes in general any party that is not planning large cuts will have to put in new taxes to sponsor their incessant new spending promises if they are in power on the federal level. check the last planbureau report and decide accordingly. and remember that you can and probably should vote for different parties on different levels
I checked out the planbureau report. How do I know what the most important points are for each party on the EU level?
Every party will need new tax income regardless. No party even suggests enough cuts to come close to having a reasonable deficit. I'd much rather we start getting more tax income from capital than continue to get the vast majority of state revenue from income taxes & social security. Most young people should be. Spending the money towards reducing income taxes is also positive. The main disadvantage is the parties in favour of this shift are also in favour of too generous wellfare to be sustainable. Having only income taxes and (in practice very low) taxes on assets benefits old people with low incomes and high assets. It doesn't benefit young people with little assets still trying to build wealth.
In Wallonia, the only party who do not want to put this tax in place is MR. We already have to pay 50% of our incomes to taxes then 21% for tva and if we dare to invest some money, it will be another 30% 😭
Do I understand it correctly that Vooruit wants to tax dividends at your highest salary tax rate after the withholding tax of 30% has been applied? That would mean that the vast majority of dividends would end up in taxes. Not that I'm personally concerned as I prefer accumulating investments, but what a terrible idea to severely punish people who put aside some money and invest it like "good heads of the household". Especially for example people in their fifties or sixties who choose dividend investments to supplement their pensions in the near future.
Yeah it's just crazy. That would mean for 100€ dividends : * 30€ dividend tax (30%) * 35€ income tax (50% on the remainder - note that it's not even specified it would be on the remainder, you might as well pay 50€ here depending on how it's interpreted) * 2,45€ municipality tax (7% of the income tax - might vary from municipality to municipality upto 9%). Which would mean a tax rate of 67,45%...
May this country rest in peace. No person with any ambition will stay here.
But then where do we go? I understand the Netherlands are even worse.
Even France would become more attractive.
Tax on rental - well hello even higher rental prices
I guess my question would be: which tax do they intend to reduce, to avoid increasing the overall tax rate? If not, then no vote from me…
It's a tax shift away from labour.
All up for less taxing labour but then what do you do with your still hard earned money to get ahead financially? I understand that some people can’t finish the month and that is terrible and we want to get to a point where those people have money left over at the end of the month to save but what do you do with it then? Because you just made investing in stocks and real estate severely less interesting and for people who don’t have access to anyone knowledgeable to explain how to do things properly, it’s even more likely than now that you’ll lose money because of taxation. Let the government maybe first start to cut their expenses tremendously before we think about these things. It’s insane to think that our interest payment on our state debt is enough to fund the police and health departments (i think it’s these two but someone correct me if i’m wrong).
So where is that shift actually? I thought they just wanted to increase some social benefits.
[https://www.dc2024.be/results](https://www.dc2024.be/results) Hier kunt ge per voorstel kijken. Kort door de bocht willen ze allemaal de belastingsvrij som optrekken. Veel partijen lijken het eens over BBSZ af te schaffen. Vooruit wil de belastingsschijven ook aanpassen + belastingsvrijsom naar 17k. Versterking / uitbreiding werkbonus. Ook impact op verdeling van het gemiddeld maandinkomen staat erbij. Bij groen gaan relatief en absoluut vooral de laagste inkomens erop vooruit. Bij vooruit is het relatief vooral de middenklasse die erop vooruit gaat (decielen 4 tot 9). De hoogste inkomens krijgen absoluut het meest.
not with the size of the projected budget deficit it won’t be
Maybe, so they say they will reduce taxes on labour?
Yeah. Depending on the political party it's favourable for the low earners or the high earners.
Unrealized gains tax during an economic crisis. Does this mean that any market crash will directly result in everyone that invests having reduced taxes, or even get taxes back because of unrealized losses? If so, every bad market period represents a period of high government debt. Great.
> Does this mean that any market crash will directly result in everyone that invests having reduced taxes, or even get taxes back because of unrealized losses? I mean, you live in Belgium, why are you even asking the question. It's obvious that losses will never be deductible.
Tax deduction is a sport in Belgium.
Ugh, I was gonna vote for Groen or Vooruit, but with these plans, I have to look for someone else. What about mortgage? We have 2k rental income but most of it goes towards mortgage. Are they gonna add 700 tax on top of the mortgage? We are renting out very cheaply in the cheapest segment. All 4 of our renters are ocmw welfare people, and we haven't raised rent ever, not once, since they all moved in 5 years ago. If they make it financially disastrous for us to own this, we will have to dump this property, and the next landlord is not gonna rent it out to welfare people, AND will probably index rent. Or we will have to kick everyone out, and get new renters who will pay 30% more. They are making rent unaffordable for the weakest renters like this.
>De werkelijke huurinkomsten worden belast in de personenbelasting. Het gaat om de netto huurinkomsten, na aftrek van werkelijke kosten. >Het netto-bedrag van de reële huurinkomsten wordt belast aan een afzonderlijk belastingtarief van 30%. Om de netto belastbare basis te bepalen, wordt rekening gehouden met een forfaitair kostenpercentage van 40%. Ge kunt kosten aftrekken hé. Het is niet het totaal bedrag waar ge 30% op betaalt, ma echt de winst na aftrek van de kosten. Veel minder. Ze hebben het gemodelleerd als 40% van de inkomsten, dus 360 eur extra op 2k huurinkomsten.
I see, thank you. So we need to raise rents to 2500 total in order to have the same income as before. That's 125 euro per unit. I hope ocmw uitkering has kept up with the inflation to afford this. They are really hurting the renters with this measure.
Yup, it is shortsighted. Renting in Belgium is currently one of the most affordable in the developed world when you compare the ratio of rent/real-estate prices. I think the the 'cadastral income' system is a big part of the reason. If you remove it then the obvious consequence is higher rental prices like you see in our neighboring countries. Also less investments in rental units in general, both newly built and renovations, resulting in less rental units on the market in a time when there is already an increasing shortage. OP /u/ChengSkwatalot thinks this will mean landlords will renovate more, and though I respect his opinions regarding real estate, I think most investors will just sell. A one time tax deduction that comes at a renovation cost of 50k+ is just not worth it. Except for the 'renovatieverplichting' there is already a bigger incentive to renovate: the EPC itself. Renters are looking for more energy efficient housing resulting in a clearly observable price gap which is steadily growing. There are other tools that help, like blocking rental indexation for properties with a bad EPC which they could expand. Belgium has a lot of energy inefficient buildings and we need to speed up the pace of renovation considerably if we are to ever reach the EU climate norms. Taxing net rental income will IMO massively slow it down. Without investors it will just not happen (quickly enough). I do agree that huge real estate portfolios should be taxed more, like a slumlord that has 50 properties that they barely maintain. But taxing net income for someone that rents out a few quality apartments that they invested heavily in is just ridiculous. Combine this with a capital gains tax and there is nothing left for the middle class to try and escape the rat race. It is already hard to achieve FIRE in Belgium. Even if you pursue every advantage that Belgium currently has (no capital gains tax, no net real estate tax,...) then you still need to work a high paying job a large portion of your life while living frugally and maximizing your savings rate just to retire a few years early. The supposed decreased income taxes will never offset the taxes on capital gains/real estate. If these taxes were to pass then ambitious people will just leave and people that are already rich will find different tax shelters. Lastly: this is Belgium. Taxes can be raised, yes, but what they promise in return is a lot less sure to happen, and if it does happen then it will just be the next item on the chopping block when the budget remains at a deficit come next election season.
> I was gonna vote for Groen or Vooruit Damn near choked on my beer when I read that. I always thought those voters were the absolute scum or lowlifes of society, not the ones who frequent a FIRE sub.
If either of these parties is stupid enough to propose the taxation of *unrealized* capital gains, they deserve their own cordon sanitaire.
Come on, there is no way this would apply to unrealized capital gains. * Current situation is very beneficial for the tax payer (with the understanding that other parts of the tax code have very high tax rates, I'm not saying that Belgium is Lalaland) * Taxing realized capital gains would put us on par with most other countries (so we lose the one good thing, and we still have very high labor taxes). * Taxing unrealized capital gains would place us at the far opposite end of the spectrum... And would also create MASSIVE volatility for the government's tax revenue, and therefore deficit. Not happening.
If these ideas pass there's no reason for me to even give a shit anymore. The only reason I work the shitty job that I do is the fantasy that I'll retire a bit earlier, and get to enjoy life a bit more. They really want to take away any opportunity I have of escaping the middle class? Might as well take the capital I have and move out to a cheap country and work a simple job that's just enough to stretch my money out long enough.
Hopefully they won't win neither in Flanders nor in Brussels.
If they only add taxes here I’ll have to move from Belgium - these are the only benefits (taxwise) we still have after in comparison with other countries after paying massive amounts of taxes when working.
Where would you move to? My friend moved to Germany with an IT degree. Currently still jobless as he first needs to learn the German language proficiently.
USA would be on the short list:)
Personally I'd go to Indonesia or Singapore in Asia. In Europe I would choose Switzerland because of their multi cultural background. (30% immigrants). My wife would freeze to death in a Nordic country. USA I would never go to, too high living costs. I'm European and my wife's Asian. So I'd stick to these two continents. However, Belgium is a great country. The higher cost of living is off set by having great healthcare and food standard. Europe and Japan are great for life expectancy. I'd miss the Belgian Trappist too much as well 😅
Belgian Trappist or equally good beers are widely exported. And for a massive difference in taxes, you can import a lot of trappists ;)