Pure financial discrimination!
The tittle says it all. I don’t go often to the office but that will chance from the 1st of July. After that I am the victim of pure discrimination. Forced by the Belgian and Dutch governments.
As a person living in one country and working in the other I will be forced due to tax regulations to be at the office every day.
Since Covid kicked in homework has become part of our way of living and that will stay the same for most. Normally you do pay income tax in the country you do work in and during Covid an agreement was made between the 2 governments that working from home would still count as like working at the office. But this agreement won’t be prolonged. Currently I do pay my income tax in the Netherlands but if I would continue to work from home, I will have to pay taxes in Belgium, which would means that my net income would decrease with a whopping 20 to 25%!
This of course has a big impact so I will be forced to go to the office each and every day. Before Covid I did work one day per week from home and nobody did complain. But now this policy will be followed strictly so I better play it safe.
I do think that it is mostly the Belgian government which doesn’t want a prolongation because more Belgium people do work in the Netherlands than the other way around. They just want those extra taxes!
This if course does result into pure discrimination because the rest of the team will come to the office once a day and won’t suffer in net salary.
One can ague that it was my choice to work abroad, which actually is the case. But when I did start working many moons ago working from hime wasn’t even possible.
So I will obey the law, for once, and do what I have to do. In the mean time I do like the Desperado Lime and Cactus 😁
Cheers,
Peter
En ik dacht altijd dat men in België veel minder belasting moest betalen... maar wel shit zeg!