Municipal foreigners tax also receives green light

At the indication of State Secretary for Asylum and Migration Theo Francken, the government gave the green light for a municipal foreigners tax just before the summer. Now that it has also been approved by the Council of State, the proposal can be brought before Parliament. “Administration related to residence permits is much more complex than that related to identity cards for Belgium’s own citizens,” says Theo Francken. “That results in an additional workload for local authorities and justifies this new tax.”

Last year, over 40,000 foreigners from outside the European Union applied to our municipalities for a renewal, extension or replacement of their temporary residence permits. From now on, they will have to pay a Fee A fee is remuneration requested by the government for a specific service that it provides. The difference between a fee and taxes is that there is an immediate service provided in return for a fee. An example is the parking charges that the municipalities can enforce. They can carry out the collection thereof themselves, or contract this out. fee for that. That fee may not exceed EUR 50.00, on top of the fixed cost of EUR 17.50. This extra fee must however be paid every year during the first five years. After that, foreigners receive an unlimited residence permit, and their new card is immediately valid for five years.

Federal foreigners tax

The new municipal compensation is added to the one-time federal foreigners tax that the government introduced last year. This applies to all foreigners who move here, with the exception of EU citizens, minors, recognised refugees, international scholarship students and people who are regularised for medical reasons. “That federal foreigners tax is intended to bring in over EUR 9 million a year,” Theo Francken explains. “Among other things I wish to use that money to create additional capacity in the closed centres for people staying here illegally, so that the number of forced repatriations, namely of criminals, can also be increased.” For this purpose, the government approved another series of measures last month. In that same month alone, Theo Francken succeeded in putting 141 criminals on a flight back to their home country. With almost 1,500 repatriations on an annual basis, the State Secretary even broke all records in 2015. Read more about this here.