Forums » Belgium » Personal Finance in Belgium

• reddy

  
   

  September 18, 2008 1:00:37 PM CEST

  Hello!
  I've got a job offer in Antwerpen, however, I'm struggling to understand how much money I'll actually get in cash after all the tax deduction.
  Coming from Sweden where there's only 1 simple income tax that depends on your gross annual salary and it's deducted from your salary every month in Belgium I got absolutely confused as it seems additionally to paying osme tax monthly, people also pay something once a year.
  I found this website http://www.minfin.fgov.be/ with some webform for tax calculation but I'd need already to have some data from the payslips which I obviously don't have yet.
  Also I've seen that each community have a special tax and in Antwerpen it's 8%.
  Thus if I assume that my salary tax for 36K a year would be 50%, I'll end up paying 58% per month of my salary to tax athorities?
  sounds horrible.....
  
  would really appreciate if anybody could clearify it!
  
  
  p.s. I don't have any property, no kids, cats, dogs or anything else apart from my and pure gross salary to take into account:)
  
  
• pococurante

  
   

  September 21, 2008 6:49:51 PM CEST

  Very broadly speaking I can tell you that in Belgium as a private person you will as a rule not have to pay any more taxes than what's deducted monthly from your salary. However, you will have to fill out a tax bill that, from what I read in your post, will be quite a bit more complicated then what you're used to.
  
  This tax bill will be interesting to look at primarily if you:
  - own a house
  - own a business
  - own considerable assets
  - have another income
  - have large expenses that can be deducted
  
  These cases could significantly affect the taxes you'd have to pay, positively or negatively, depending on whether the particular circumstance makes you money or costs you money. There are many more conditions but these are some of the most common ones.
  
  However, I am telling you this only from second hand experience as my wife and I fall under a special diplomat regime and thus the whole Belgian tax scheme doesn't apply to us.
• devoir

  
   

  September 21, 2008 8:55:21 PM CEST

  There's a handy calculator online here (in Dutch) that will calculate your net salary for you. It takes your marital status, number of dependents, things like meal checks, extra insurance, company car, etc. into account and tells you (approximately) what you should be getting after taxes.
• blarfy

  
   

  October 4, 2008 11:41:52 PM CEST

  To be honest, the tax situation is awful. I spent a year paying local tax and it just ended up being stupid (considering the amount of bureaucracy, nastiness and able-bodied people walking around during work time on a given weekday in Brussels).
  
  Figuring out the tax system defeated me, and I speak Dutch and French. My wife's tax people did one year's return, and I have another professional to do it next year.
• xy_marshall

  
   

  November 25, 2008 11:52:21 PM CET

  accepting Belgian offer requires careful consideration, dude