Young people and retirees on the front line
For many young owners, the property rate arrives in addition to an already heavy mortgage credit. Retirees often have fixed and sometimes modest income, but have a fully paid house.
The problem, explains Simon Watteyne, history researcher at the Free University of Brussels, is the inadequacy between real income and cadastral income: “The system does not care if, in a large house, live a couple of bankers, retirees or young debts. It only taxes property, not the actual capacity to pay.”
The property tax is often criticized. It gives the impression of inequality in the distribution of tax effort. Indeed, the amount does not depend directly on the revenues of the owners: a modest household can therefore pay the same thing as easy household if their property has an equivalent cadastral income.
To make the property withdrawal fairer, some imagine a fair system: for example, reduced, even zero taxation, for the good that we occupy, and more taxes on second residences or reports.
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