The Programme Law of July 1, 2016, sets up a framework for taxing income received from the sharing economy, consisting of an advantageous (but limited) tax regime for personal service providers who run through a digital platform and tax withholding at source by the digital platform.
The sharing, or peer-to-peer, economy is booming as digital platforms and apps (such as Uber, MenuNextDoor, Airbnb, and AirBsit) allow people to offer new services from sharing cars, cooking takeaway meals for their neighbors, renting rooms, babysitting, and more.
However, the tax regime of the income made from those peer-to-peer marketplaces was far from clear and often escaped taxation in Belgium. A private sale of cast-off clothes or a property is not liable to capital gains tax as long as it occurs within the normal management of one’s private estate. The private letting of property is taxed just like rental income. As long as the income is not made as part of a professional activity, such income from an occasional activity was, in principle, to be characterized as “miscellaneous income” that was liable to tax at a fixed rate of 33 percent. Understandably, many taxpayers who had provided takeaways or babysitting services forgot to declare the income from these occasional activities. To read more.
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