The tax shift is benefiting Belgian employers. Belgium has dropped a place on the table of the most expensive countries for employers. In its 8th study of European salaries, Deloitte revealed Belgium has dropped from 2nd to 5th place in two years. “Despite the improvement in its position, Belgium is still among the most expensive as it has not capped employer costs”, Deloitte says.
“Social security costs dropped to an average of 30.46% and will continue to drop, reaching 25% in 2019. Thanks to the tax shift, Belgium is in 5th place on the table of the most expensive countries for all salaries levels (compared to second in 2015). For low salaries, Belgium is in 7th position (in the middle) on the table of the most expensive countries”, Deloitte explained.
Belgian workers receive a lower net salary than their European counterparts. Deloitte says this is because of a high marginal taxation rate (53.3%), which is applied to even very low salaries (38,830 euros).
The tax shift was designed to let employees on low salaries keep a bigger part of their gross salary. The study shows that while this is the case, the impact has been minimal because Belgium has only dropped one place for the lowest (around 25,000 euros) and middle range salary brackets (50,000 euros).
Finally, in terms of available income, Belgian employees fare worse than their Luxemburgish and German neighbours, but better than France or the Netherlands.
(Source: Belga)
