2023-08-04 07:58:00
All eyes have turned in recent weeks to the few municipalities that have increased their additional cents to the property tax. A rather unwelcome choice knowing that this prepayment would already automatically increase by around 10% by the simple game of indexation.
In some entities “the multiplier effect of the additional pennies will be heavy”, calculates Nicolas Stockmans, Tax Partner, Global Expatriate Services at BDO. Up to more than 30% in cold hard currency for certain taxpayers. And to cite five examples for a property whose cadastral income would amount to 2,000 euros all round: this year, the property tax for said property will amount to 1,265 euros in Lasne (+9.5% in one year), 1 557 euros in Auderghem (+9.5%), 1,830 euros in Rixensart (+9.6%), 2,603 euros in Forest (+32.7%) and 2,708 euros in Schaerbeek (+18.3%) . That is a difference between the first and the last of nearly 1,500 euros! A blow for the owners who pay the tax, whether they are owner-occupiers or lessors, but also for the professional tenants of shops, offices, workshops or storage spaces who are liable for this property tax. . “Small businesses will be strongly impacted,” he adds.
In addition to the shock of the indexation of the property tax, there is the increase in additional cents: here are the municipalities most affected (MAPS)
The property tax accounts for 30% of a municipality’s income
“The property tax represents, on average, 30% of a municipality’s income compared to around 10% from the IPP (personal income tax), continues Nicolas Stockmans. The Covid crisis and inflation having accentuated the impoverishment of the population and reduced the receipts from income, there is a strong temptation to increase the property tax, at the risk of further impoverishing the populations and therefore having to push these additional centimes upwards again and again. If Ganshoren and Watermael-Boitsfort have increased their property tax, it is in order to compensate for a decrease in additional centimes to the IPP. But this is not the case for all the municipalities which have increased their additional cents this year.
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Cadastral income will continue to be indexed positively. It won’t have the proportions of this year, but they will still increase, probably by 2 to 3% next year.
Lasne, the least taxed in Wallonia
The weight of this property tax which varies, in Belgium and Flanders, between 28.60% (Sint-Martens-Latem) and 67.62% (Alveringem), in Wallonia between 33.13% (Lasne) and 64.94 % (Ath), and in Brussels between 38.49% (Auderghem) and 66% (Schaerbeek), is not the only inequality that the expert observes.
“The income of the inhabitants of these municipalities can differ greatly. Here, a 10% increase in the property tax will represent a trifle or almost, there a real financial concern. But it is above all the basis of the calculation that makes this tax unfair, details Nicolas Stockmans: Since the cadastral income of properties has not been reviewed since 1980, they are absolutely no longer representative of the real value of the property.Here they are over-evaluated, there under-evaluated. small new apartments in Forest post a RC of 1,500 euros, whereas that of a mansion in Ixelles barely reaches the same amount. an RC of less than 1,000 or 2,000 euros, while a house dating from the 1970s located elsewhere in Walloon Brabant easily aligns one of 4,000 euros.”
Sharp rise in the price of building land in four years: more than a quarter in Belgium, almost a third in Wallonia
No drop in the withholding tax to be expected
With this property owners cannot hope that things will change next year or the following years. “Unless you are in a deflationary context – and I don’t believe it for a second – cadastral income will continue to be indexed positively, concludes Nicolas Stockmans. This will not have the proportions of this year, but they will still increase, 2 to 3% probably next year. Unless the municipalities reduce their claims and therefore their additional cents.”
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