Cheers in many living rooms: the tax season has started again. At least for those who want to enter their tax return via Tax-on-web, because this is now possible for assessment year 2020. The paper version will be sent in the course of this month.
New codes
This year, the tax return has 829 codes. For Flemings, this is 18 more than last year. Most of them are temporary. “That is of course linked to corona,” explains Minister of Finance Vincent Van Peteghem (CD&V). “There have been many temporary measures taken by federal and regional governments to support families and businesses.”
People from the healthcare sector do not have to worry about the one-off premium they received for their efforts during the corona crisis: “The healthcare premium is part of the salary for December, and therefore does not have to be entered separately”, says the minister.
Day-care
If you have young children, you know: the amount you can contribute for childcare has been fixed at 11.20 euros per day per child for many years. “That is now 13 euros per day,” says the minister. “We want to support families who want to combine family and work. We are therefore also raising the age limit from 12 to 14 years, for disabled children even to 18 years.”
The minister points out that the full package for the deduction of childcare costs has increased. “Even for children’s camps that could not take place due to corona, the costs may still be included in the tax bill. And parents who call in professional childcare for a sick child. , may henceforth bring in those costs. “
Gifts
Many organizations had a difficult time generating income last year. “That is why we want to give people an extra incentive to support charities. Normally the deduction of a donation is 45%, we have increased it to 60%.
According to the minister, this measure does not miss its effect: “We hear from organizations that they actually notice that people make more donations, now that they know that for a gift of 100 euros they receive a benefit of 60 euros.”
Less simplified declarations
Also striking: “only” 3.75 million people will receive a simplified tax return proposal (VVA), which is 170,000 fewer than in 2020. The tax authorities say they choose to send out fewer simplified tax returns this year, according to stricter criteria to make sure they contain the correct information. There were some complaints about that last year.
“The VVA sometimes contained incorrect information, also because the FPS Finance sometimes did not receive that information,” explains Van Peteghem. “It can always be adjusted afterwards, that is also the intention. Yet we have it this year chosen to be more correct, but that makes the target group slightly more limited.”
Payment plan
In recent weeks there has been some commotion around the fact that people do temporarily unemployed were, will have to pay extra. This mainly concerns people with higher wages who have been temporarily unemployed for a very short period. Minister van Peteghem: “For the temporarily unemployed, the Withholding tax dropped to 15% because they had a hard time during that period. We made sure they had more purchasing power when they needed it. But delay is not cancellation, so that has to be paid afterwards. “
The minister points out that this does not increase taxes: “Nobody pays a cent more in taxes. They just paid too little taxes in advance, and that must now be corrected. “
If you have trouble repaying that amount, the minister provides a solution: “People can if they want to installment plan up to 4 months to get. You can easily request this from the FPS Finance. You can also pay off longer, but you must first argue the reason with the FPS Finance. “
Telephone assistance
Due to corona, there are also this year no fill-in sessions on site organized, but there is, just like last year telephone assistance, says Minister of Finance Vincent Van Peteghem. “We think it is important that we help people in that process. We also notice that many people are very positive about this support, because one can call our employees from home.”
The paper declaration must be received on June 30th, with Tax-on-web you have time to 15th of July.
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