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Freelance writing, cont.
First of all, thank you for the responses to my question of last week, particularly to J for understanding my dilemma and providing much helpful input, really appreciated.
I am not really understanding how things work in Belgium. Since it appears to be extremely costly to set up as a freelancer, and I have no intention of working in the black, and a contract job is not coming in, how does one get things rolling? It seems to stay legal I would have to be a freelancer to even randomly send pieces I write to magazines etc in the off chance that they use one of them? It seems very discouraging and anti-entrepreneurial. Or is occasional income, like a magazine sell or something, perfectly legal? Or am I doomed to earning nothing until I get a contract job, which as I said earlier, isn't happening too fast?
It is not expensive to set up as freelance. It costs about 80 euros to register at a guichet d'entreprise. Then you complete the registration at the tax office. If you want the guichet to do that for you, they charge you about 80 euros for the service. That is for setting up.
When you register at the guichet, they ask you about expected earnings. Tell them it will probably be zero to very low in the first few months, and they will ask you to pay 70 euros every three months. When your earning pick up, you can email them and they will adjust your payments.
Hello,
from my inquiries to Finances, Economy and Mutuelles I found taxes to be enormous even if you declare zero expected income. I also want to be legal in very occasional jobs.
Do you have anything to add from your experience through this, please?
Thanks :)
