One-third of Brussels households do not pay taxes

Less than two-thirds of Brussels households pay taxes, according to figures from the Brussels Institute of Statistics and Analysis (Bisa). This is due to the high number of families with no job or a low income, writes Bruzz.

Bisa reveals that, in 2014, 65% of Brussels households paid income tax, significantly less than in other regions of Belgium. In Wallonia, 70% of the residents are taxpayers, and in Flanders as many as 77%.

The fact that 35% of Brussels inhabitants do not pay taxes is mainly due to insufficient income or a neutral status after the deduction of various fiscal benefits. The majority of the expats in Brussels who pay little or no taxes were left out of the statistics.

The figures can be explained by the large number of unemployed and low-skilled workers in the capital, as well as the many young employees who are just starting out in their careers and therefore earning less, according to Bisa.

The figures also reveal strong regional differences among the Brussels municipalities. In Saint-Josse, for example, only 53% of the households pay taxes, compared to 74% in municipalities such as Auderghem and Woluwe-Saint-Pierre.

According to Herman Matthijs, public finance professor at the Free University of Brussels (VUB), the limited share of taxpayers in Brussels has been a problem for years. "There are too few people working and there are too few people with a normal income," he told Bruzz. Rapid population growth and employment are not developing proportionately, he says. "This reduces the average income as well as the fiscal capacity of the region.”