Diependaele’s latest proposal feels like another kick in the balls for the average Joe. We were promised more purchasing power and that working would pay off. So far, I’m mostly seeing new ways to take money out of our pockets.
Diependaele’s latest reported proposalstill under negotiation:
- Dienstencheques from €10 to €12. That’s 20% more.
- Registration duty for your own home back from 2% to 3%. Another €3,000 upfront on a €300,000 home.
- Groeipakket ending at 23 instead of 25 for students living at home.
- Half the promised De Lijn expansion funding scrapped.
That registration-duty cut was advertised as helping young buyers. Turns out it came with a free trial.
At federal level, we’ve already got the centenindex. For the affected 2% adjustment, someone on a €5,000 gross reference salary gets €80 instead of €100 extra per month. The pension malus has also been approved, with permanent pension reductions for some early retirees starting in 2027.
The substantial income-tax cuts, meanwhile, are concentrated in 2029–2030. We’re already feeling the restrictions, while cheaper home purchases and better public transport are being reconsidered.
What bothers me is the tax treatment that survives elsewhere:
- Ordinary private residential rent is taxed using indexed cadastral income rooted in 1975instead of actual rent. France and Germany already start from actual rental income, with allowances or deductions for costs.
- Sell a privately held investment apartment after more than five years and the gain is generally untaxed under normal private asset management.
- Qualifying shareholders who directly own at least 20% of a company get a €1 million capital-gains exemption over five years. Ordinary portfolio investors get a base exemption of €10,000 a year.
If you don’t trust the state pension to be enough and invest in ordinary shares or funds for retirement, your taxable realised gains above the exemption now face 10% tax. I find that difference in treatment pretty hard to justify.
Before the next election, I’d love a scorecard showing what each party promised, what it actually voted for, and what that meant for people’s finances. Something we can point to when the same promises come around again.
How do we hold them to that? Which parties have actually earned another vote, and how do we avoid another round of this shitshow?
"Making work pay": Did they mean paying for the budget hole?
byu/thefastandme inbelgium
Posted by thefastandme
14 Comments
JFYI I paid 10 % tax on house acquisition. The decrease in taxes did nothing for house prices on your end, it only increased the amount the seller can ask.
People keep voting for this shit. Boomers and child less people will say: i started working when i was 18, no need for kindergeld at 23. They think they will get the money saved via via but that’ll never happen.
They also scrapped the entire ‘ambtenerenpension’ for young people. Again this will be populair with a lot of people but their pension won’t get a cent higher because of it.
In before the left-right bickering
The many politicians are the problem, don’t let them drag you into left/right deviation tactics.
Not only the politicians, but also all the overhead that brings.
Jonge mensen (18-35 pakweg) wederom het hardst genaaid. Bende prutsers
Tsja, je kan nog op PVDA of Vlaams Belang stemmen
Of het dan veel beter of veel slechter wordt laat ik aan u…
Of eventueel een nieuwe politieke partij starten. Met De juiste influencers is dat misschien wel haalbaar de dag van vandaag…
don’t vote for the nva
Dienstencheques were just increased in price and now we get another increase. Keep it up and people will just switch back to paying their cleaning lady “int zwart”.
Wat ik niet begrijp is hoe de Vlaamse begroting van geen enkel probleem een paar jaar geleden naar ook een grote dificit is gegaan.
Om te beginnen, laten we de vraag betantwoorden wie dat er hier voor verantwoordelijk moet gehouden worden? Was het weer een verhaal van subsidies of tax cuts uit te schrijven aan de vrienden om dan een paar jaar later te ‘geen keuze te hebben dat te besparen’?
This places the bill with the average (mostly young) citizen. Government savings: nihil.
Does anyone know how long it takes for these rules to apply? E.g. if you buy a house this year, will you still be able to ‘benefit’ from 2% registration duty?
>Ordinary private residential rent is taxed using indexed cadastral income rooted in **1975**, instead of actual rent. France and Germany already start from actual rental income, with allowances or deductions for costs.
I don’t like loopholes, etc. and I think we should have a big reform of the income tax (and probably other taxes like property taxes too) to make it as simple as possible and stop helping this or that group with random stuff, but you also have to look at the effect that some sweeping changes would have, especially when they’re not offset by other measures.
What you’re proposing here is a large increase in the tax burden on rental income, especially in the urban areas where the housing situation is already dire (this is where there’s going to be a big mismatch, not in a rural area where prices have not increased so much).
The landlords would try to pass on some of this to their tenants, but the law does not really allow it since rents are often locked in for a long period (+ reference rents in Brussels, although the landlords might managed to have them revised with such a large increase in their costs).
In this context, rental properties become completely unprofitable for small landlords. You get a big negative supply shock as they sell off. Maybe it benefits first-time buyers since there’s more apartments to buy, but at the expense of current and future tenants (who are typically worse off than buyers). You may also have a much larger share of rental properties owned by corporate entities rather than small landlords (these entities benefit from economies of scale for maintenance, …). Not necessarily a good thing for tenants since it makes the rental market more concentrated. On the other hand, they might be more professional than small landlords.
Het stoort mij ook mateloos hoe de échte rijken (die met gigantische portfolio’s aan vastgoed, beursbeleggingen, etc.) altijd buiten schot blijven, maar kan niet zeggen dat ik geheel ontevreden ben met de maatregelen. Ik denk dat iedereen ondertussen toch al redelijk begrijpt dat de overheid moet “ontvetten” en vooral in de richting van de uitgaven moet kijken. We zijn het als Belg erg gewoon dat de overheid quasi overal tussenkomt met subsidies, premies en whatever, maar uiteindelijk zijn zaken zoals dienstencheques, groeipakket, subsidies voor jan en alleman nv, enzovoort wel degelijk dé redenen die maken dat we zoveel belastingen betalen.
Dan over dat eeuwige debacle over die huurinkomsten. Akkoord dat KI’s moeten geactualiseerd worden, alleen al zodat het voor iedereen eerlijker is. Tegenwoordig heb je zo van die situaties dat je voor een nieuwbouwappartementje méér KI betaalt dan voor een villa gebouwd ergens in de jaren stillekes maar waar volgens het kadaster zogezegd geen badkamer is (maar er uiteraard al decennia staat).
De effectieve huurinkomsten en de meerwaarden van woningen belasten ben ik heel sceptisch over. België is naar de ons omringende landen rekening houdende met de lonen nog tamelijk betaalbaar qua huisvesting. Een grote reden is wellicht dat verhuren niet zwaar belast is en verkopen totaal niet.
Je kan bijvoorbeeld wel mensen die pakweg meer dan 3 appartementen verhuren zwaarder gaan belasten.
1 million people voted for this. Another 1 million are far right. Things will only get worse. 2029 will be dogshit.
Happened to run the increases through GPT recently and the policy changes / increased costs by Flanders cost me about €500 more as in 2024, going to an expected €700 atleast in 2027 without including any upcoming proposals. Meanwhile *absolutely nothing* has improved.
They said the difference between working and not working should increase.
The Gewesten/Gemeenschappen also have to get to a balance. Be glad you live in flanders, things will be waaay worse in Brussels and Wallonia.