Faced with constant increases in energy prices, a few weeks ago the federal government announced a reduction in VAT from 21 to 6%. But there was still a doubt: all those who live in an apartment building, in other words 1.5 million people, whose gas contract goes through a company (a condominium, a trustee). Would they also be able to benefit from this reduction? Well, the Minister’s answer has just come out: it’s no! For them, the VAT remains at 21%…
“It’s unfair and completely unacceptable,” according to Damien Ernst, engineer at the University of Liège and specialist in energy issues. “And it’s not 1.5 million Belgians who live in condominiums, it’s 1.5 million in condominiums. So we are between 3 and 3.5 million Belgians. They are often people with low incomes, and who do not benefit from the social tariff for gas. So there is a double social injustice, it is completely unacceptable. This impoverished population will take this increase in the gas bill head on and will not have the help of nobody. I feel like I’m hallucinating”.
Pour Damien Ernst, “we must very clearly raise the VAT for gas, for all condominiums to 6%. We must also find the most impoverished people in the condominiums and ensure that they can also benefit from a social equivalent that “they might have had if they had had a gas boiler. I also live in a condominium, sometimes with elderly people on low incomes, and it becomes unbearable. I can see it in Liège, many people call me out saying that they no longer know how to pay their bills. I don’t understand, it’s a colossal mistake”.
As for the preferential rate enjoyed by certain condominiums, it represents almost nothing compared to the gigantic increase in the price of gas in the latter, according to Damien Ernst.
Illustration of the disarray of the population in this subject of the RTL info 13 h:
