Proposition 54K1520

Projet de loi relatif aux mesures concernant le renforcement de la création d'emplois et du pouvoir d'achat.

General information ¶

Submitted by

MR Swedish coalition

Submission date

Dec. 10, 2015

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

VAT excise duty tax relief energy-generating product health care tax on income purchasing power social-security contribution social security tobacco employment aid wage earner self-employed person

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR

Voted to reject

Groen Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI PVDA | PTB VB

Abstained from voting

PP

Party dissidents ¶

• Olivier Maingain (MR) voted to reject.

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Discussion ¶

Dec. 18, 2015 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

The rapporteurs are Mr. Laaouej, by Mr. Deseyn, by Mr. Vercamer and Mr. by Friart. Return to the written report.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, I would like to emphasize first that we are not working in optimal conditions; this is the least that can be said. I find here the test of a report to which are attached tables that would indicate the effects, by income level, of a number of measures. I am unable to tell you whether these paintings are good or whether they are critical.

Ms. De Block gave these tables to the Social Affairs Committee. I have seen these pictures in the plenary session. There is, therefore, clearly a problem with the transmission of information between the different commissions. In the future, it will be necessary to think about joint committees dealing with certain aspects of files such as this. I turn to my more experienced colleagues; I imagine that this has already been done.

You will understand that I will not comment on these paintings. If you wish to invoke them, I will ask that they may be examined on the occasion of a committee that can still be held until the vote in plenary session. I am sorry, but working in these conditions is not possible.

In the same way, I spoke on the sidelines of this session and with Mr. Van Overtveldt, the fact that the goal is today to vote. There will be no obstacle of any kind in the head of the PS group on whose behalf I speak after consultation with my group leader. However, the State Council’s opinion has just arrived. It would be necessary to get acquainted with it in good conditions in order to see if there is not, as agreed, a matter for rectification, which can still be done today by amendments. Everything is possible.

In these circumstances, I will try to tell you what I think of your tax reform. This tax shift is a missed opportunity. You have missed a great opportunity to reform our tax system to make it fairer and more efficient. Why Why ? At the end of the previous parliamentary term, a joint Chamber and Senate commission had been set up to explore the pathways for a possible tax reform. We worked for several weeks, assisted by different departments and conducted numerous hearings, to result in a relatively interesting report. This was built around several paths that did not gather consensus, it is true, but that gave a certain number of directions.

Almost simultaneously, the Supreme Council of Finance issued a report on the possible pathways for a tax reform in terms of displacement. By the way, he was the first actor in the political debate to use the notion of tax shift.

When you read these two reports, and when you compare them to the project submitted, you can not really say that you were largely inspired by them, far from it. That is why I say that there is already a missed opportunity here. You did not feed yourself on the many reflections that were yet at your disposal.

The second reason why you miss the goal is that it is clear that you do not take into account the qualitative and dynamic evolution of our economic fabric, which is no longer the same as it was thirty years ago. I think of the financialization of the economy, the colossal gains in productivity as well as the changes in the wage mass and the level of employment following the digital revolution. It is already known that there will be a large process of replacing jobs with others, or even that the overall level of employment will disappear. These elements are fundamental – but, apparently, you have not integrated them. Otherwise, you would have taken other measures regarding the shift of taxation of labor income to capital income.

Another point that you ignore is the rigorous review of the current panorama of our taxation, to see its distribution according to the plates. When we observe the 106 billion euros of tax revenues – I say “fiscal”, not “parafiscal”, I will return to them – which are registered in the 2016 budget, we see that more than 70% of them rely on either labour income or on the consumption of households, itself financed by those. What does this mean? This means that to an economic imbalance, given that labor income accounts for only 50% of GDP, adds a fiscal imbalance. While a portion of wages decreases more and more for the deep economic reasons I explained, it turns out that it is the households, the workers, who support most of the taxation.

You also do not take this into account because you are shifting part of the taxation of labor income to consumption. This is one of the major shortcomings of your tax reform.

You do not take into account the many works carried out, nor the qualitative evolution of the economic fabric, nor the distribution of taxation on the different plates. At least for these three reasons – but there are others – this is a missed opportunity.

I also want to fundamentally challenge the use of the term tax shift. In your project, it’s a whole piece of stuff. There are reductions in taxes on labour or on taxes that are closer to them; increases in taxes on consumption, small increases in capital income; reductions in employee social contributions. You consider it a compulsory levy in the same way as taxes and you make it part of your tax shift by claiming to change the tax on work.

We are not obliged to share your view of things. In view of history, first, because social security was conceived as an element of wage. It is an indirect, deferred salary, an insurance funded by employers and employees to guarantee them against risks related to their condition, in particular that of losing their job. Unemployment insurance is an insurance against the risk of not returning to work, against the risk of being ill; it is also an insurance that aims to cover the risk of loss of economic capacity due to an accident or old age.

This is Social Security! So, when you decrease employer social contributions – at the same time that you underfinance social security with the downward revision of the growth rate – you touch this part of the indirect wage of workers.

So you have purchasing power. You can’t say that you’re making a tax shift that will boost your purchasing power while in reality you’re pushing out social security. That is, the indirect wages of the workers. Therefore, I fundamentally challenge your approach to social security.

Colleague Laauouej, there are some arguments in your argument that happen to me strangely. Your reasoning might be correct if social security was financed only with contributions from employees. It is not so. Employers also contribute to social security. Another point that seems completely strange to me is that you pretend that social security is financed entirely through contributions. It is not so. There is a huge gap in social security that we fill with general resources.

The only person who is apparently not fully associated with the new situation is you yourself. You say that we must take into account the historical foundations of social security. Unfortunately, much has changed. Social security is largely financed from general resources. It is not only the workers who finance social security from the beginning, but also the employers. When you say that the employer’s contribution cannot be affected from the idea that all resources come from the employees, it seems to me that is technically not correct at all.

Mr. Gilkinet, I appreciate the interruptions, but it is worth addressing the speaker, in this case Mr. by Laaouej.

I would like to comment on Mr. Laaouej on the character of deferred salary of social contributions, a vision that I can widely agree with.

Since a few years ago, social contributions were no longer sufficient to finance social security, since before this tax shift project, reductions of social contributions had already been decided to benefit employers and, if possible, employment, alternative financing had to be developed. But let us be careful! This alternative financing, mentioned by Mr. Laaouej, is linked to choices of reducing social contributions to the benefit of employment. It is vestzak-broekzak, as our Flemish friends say. If there was alternative financing of this importance, it was because there were reductions in social contributions.

Our regret, for years, in our capacity as environmentalists, is the non-structural character, to be negotiated every year, of this alternative financing and the absence of options prior to this government. Today, the approach is initiated but is still clearly insufficient to make more contributions to capital revenues and to allocate these new revenues to social security, so as not to have to negotiate every year with all those who are the supporters of a state that cares for the most fragile at this time.

Yes, there is a significant alternative financing, but it is linked to reductions in social contributions that have already been decided and not always well allocated.

Mr. Laouej, I am pleased to hear you remind some realities. Generally, the political world tends to forget them. Social contributions, whether they are contributions of workers or employers, constitute indirect wages. I am glad to hear you say it. These cuts in contributions are what I call “donations to employers” – that makes the chairman of the Finance Committee laugh. I had the impression that there was only the PTB who defended this vision.

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Mrs. Onkelinx, I am pleased to see that it is not only the PTB that defends this vision. Per ⁇ we should also have a self-critical look at the past. It is not the first government to make this kind of reduction.

It is also said that contributions should be reduced by doing this way and not another. In the end, we turn around and do not touch the node of the system.

Mr. Laaouej, Mr. Bogaert, the so-called employer contributions are part of the entire indirect wage of the workers, even though, formally, this does not appear as such. In fact, consider an accounting balance sheet and account 62 of wage charges, which includes all wages, including employer charges. The real salary is therefore found in the accounting of the company.

Like other colleagues, Mr. Bogart intervenes here. It may be questioned whether the latter speaks as a member of parliament or as a business leader.

Mr. Van Hees, maybe you should avoid making personal attacks.

In any case, I feel that Mr. Bogaert is sensitive to this issue.

But to return to the subject that concerns us, I wanted to recall that even the so-called employer contributions are, in reality, part of the indirect wage of the workers.

Monsieur le président, you rejoice me of the presence of repeaters in this assembly. I would like to thank you MM. Gilkinet and Van Hees.

I would like to say that Mr. Van Hees reminds me of this cock who believes that the sun rises because it does cocorico.

That said, Mr. Van Hees, I would like to remind you that social security – I return here to the answers given to Mr. Van Hees. Bogaert – is the result of arduous discussions between workers and employers. Then, it was state-stated in 1944, when the Social Democratic Socialists like us took the bull by the horns to say that it was necessary to ensure a dignified level of comfort for the workers, at a time when the collectivist ideologies of your political family were different, ideologies that did not impress with their effectiveness.

Mr. Bogert, I did not say that there were only personal social contributions. I never said that. I’ve even explicitly spoken about employee social contributions, since in reality, that’s what it’s about.

Employer social contributions such as personal social contributions are the only ones to participate in the financing of social security. I will return later on alternative financing. This is part of the exchange contract. In other words, when a worker negotiates with an employer individually or collectively, even if it is often collectively, he tells him that he wants monetary salary, but also that he wants to be covered against the risks related to his working conditions. This is why both fund this legal insurance system. I am talking about the indirect salary that others have mentioned. I have not said anything else, Mr. Bogart!

Second element: Alternative financing is an interesting development. Why Why ? We realize, due to the evolution and financialization of the economy, that today it is possible to make money with money. Production of capital. Moreover, in wealth creation, the share of robotics, digitalization is constantly growing and that is why the share of wages is less important.

There is nothing illogical, nothing inconsistent with the possibility of contributing other plates, especially capital, to finance social security. I am not going to impose on you a classical economics course, but to produce wealth, it takes capital, labor and natural resources. That the whole finances social security has nothing strictly inconsistent, but the opposite.

I repeat that by reducing employer social contributions, at the same time as you reduce the growth rate of health care, you affect the purchasing power of the population. To say the opposite would be wrong.

Mr. Laaouej, your reasoning is, therefore, that if the government reduces the employer’s contribution, then we touch the purchasing power of the people. Is that what you say?

Between the two! Between your two premises, there is another. You result in a definition of social security that will result, and your policy already shows it, in a reduction of social protections.

When medicines and the doctor become more expensive, you lose the available income. It is money that cannot be spent on anything else, you touch the purchasing power of the population.

If this is true, you should answer the following question.

We always talk about taxshift, but there is taxshift 1 and taxshift 2. Taxshift 1 is actually the competitiveness pact of the previous government-Di Rupo. In this tax shift 1, the competitiveness pact, we do nothing else. We have implemented a reduction in the employer burden.

You say that a reduction in the employer burden means a reduction in the purchasing power of the workers. For the first time, the PTB gives me the right. I hope you give me technical right, not ideological, because otherwise I myself am in trouble. We did not do otherwise in the previous government. We have signed the Competitiveness Pact.

Your colleague Daerden has, by the way, distributed a table in the committee to show to what extent the employer burden has decreased under the Competitiveness Pact.

What exactly is the accusation? Does this government do that too?

I challenge you in the reasoning that a reduction in employer contributions leads to a loss of purchasing power among workers. Explain that once.

This may be a detail, but as we have said, the devil lies in the details. by Mr. Laaouej talked about the increase in the price of medicines. But the minister is just trying to lower the price of medicines and that it costs less for the patient. This is a bad example.

I will be very brief. I will return to my speech on Monday in the committee, as Mr. Bogart has just referenced it. I had already recalled the measures that were taken in the competitiveness pact and I also insisted on Monday on the opinion of the social partners regarding a guaranteed structural financing of social security and this, given the evolution of the share of social contributions in its financing. I regretted and regretted the fact that this guaranteed structural financing was not provided as part of this current reform. The minister announced that it would be for tomorrow or aftermorrow and that it would be considered. I regret once again, as I have had the opportunity to say about pensions, that we do things a little differently. There is no guarantee of funding, but contributions are reduced. What should have been done is to guarantee this financing, to integrate this unanimous opinion of the social partners in parallel with this reduction of contribution through contributions.

Mr. Laauouej, your presentation surprised me. I am not a member of the Social Affairs Committee, but is it true that the Socialists do not agree to a reduction in the employer’s contribution? Everybody has always assumed that the labor costs ...

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Mrs. Temmerman, I have always understood, including from the trade unions, that this can take away their approval. I think, for example, of the ACV, of which I do not want to be the spokesperson, which has always pointed out that the loop of the tax shift on reducing the social contributions to reduce labour costs could take away their approval. Yesterday I pointed out that too.

Ms. Onkelinx, we need to improve competitiveness and reduce labour costs. Employer contributions are an essential part of those costs. We have had one index jump, but we should not reduce wages.

Mr. Van Hees, that is a component of, as you indicate yourself, the indirect salary, which is also paid by the employers. Reducing employer contributions is not a gift given to employers. That reduction comes to make labour costs cheaper and thus create jobs, which in turn contribute.

Ms. Onkelinx, the social security, pensions and unemployment benefits, will remain affordable in the coming years only if jobs are added, if employment is stimulated. This is the ABC of the tax shift. For me, it is about this, much more than about purchasing power shifts.

Mrs. Temmerman, I have understood that the Socialists are of the opinion that reducing the social burden is unacceptable.

The main problem is the reduction of employers’ contributions. I am referring to the report.

Three billion dollars!

Are you opposed to the reduction of employer contributions?

What I hear now is completely new.

Mrs. Onkelinx, now you end up in Mr. Van Hees’s slope. That is PTB language; that is communist.

Mr Van Rompuy, be calm.

No, Mr. Laouej, I am upset! I know you as a reasonable man. Now you are making ideology. You are no longer in the economy.

I recognize a single defect, that is to read your blog too often, Mr. Van Rompuy. And maybe that’s why I finally come to say that your tax reform, which is not funded – you say it yourself – will in any case lead you to make savings in social security. You cannot say the opposite.

Mr. Van Rompuy, first of all, to make ideology, it is not an insult. I don’t understand when you argue this way.

Then, when it comes to social security, we are actually talking about something extremely important. For those who wonder why there is a dotation, I remind you that social security is not only for the well-being of workers. Social security, over time, has helped develop social policies that allow the entire population to experience well-being. And it is ⁇ thanks to our social security that:

First, we are among the best ranked in the “Welfare Countries” cited by the OECD;

Secondly, we were able to make the best shield against the crisis.

Whenever we participated in governments, we accepted reductions in social contributions, if possible targeted at low wages, in such a way that it could become employment policies. At the same time, we have always said that we are not opposed to reductions in employer social contributions to support competitiveness, but that, therefore, the financing of this social security must be assumed by other means.

We have, gradually, managed to diversify the sources of financing of social security and that is a very good thing. But where it goes wrong, especially in your tax shift, it is that you refused to find the means, by a significant contribution on the capital, to come to compensate for the sharp decrease in employer social contributions. And this is why we blame you for not defending our social security. On the contrary, you are weakening it. You are decreasing contributions without at the same time daring this big debate of a capital tax that would come to solidify our system.

Mr. Speaker, I am slightly shocked by the statements of the Chairman of the Committee on Finance. I have the privilege now to sit a good year in that committee, as an effective member. We have often talked about tax shift. I said every time then that we are absolutely in favour of a tax shift, a reduction in the burden for companies and a reduction in the taxes for people.

Mr Van Rompuy, you have addressed us. What you come here to say, namely that we are now advocating not to reduce the burden for the companies, that I don’t fuck. You are just not honest!

For me it is clear. A few weeks ago, you were summoned by the group leader of the N-VA, Mr Vuye. I understood that this had an effect. You’re making a lot of effort to walk back into the garage and tell things today that just aren’t fair.

When Mr. Vuye said a few weeks ago that there should be no intelligence test before the presidency of a committee, I thought that was a scandalous comment. However, I may have to gradually give him the right.

Mr. Vanvelthoven, there is no garage large enough to keep Eric Van Rompuy in touch. Such a car has yet to be invented.

Colleagues, the discussion is, of course, interesting and I think, Mr. Laaouej, that you have expressed in your presentation, in which your group leader contributed, the concern that a reduction in employee contributions will affect the financing of social security.

It is true, Mr. Onkelinx, that we have always adjusted this in the previous legislatures. I invite you to repeat the government agreement on this subject. In the loop on balance donation, we have explicitly stipulated that the financing of social security must not have a surplus or a deficit. We will adjust this through KB and distribute it across employees and self-employed. In other words, the principle of clearing the deficits in social security is also guaranteed by this government, just as by the previous governments. Again, there is no breach of style.

I would like to thank all my colleagues for their contribution to the debate. We are really at the heart of the subject. It is a question of what standard of living we want to ensure our fellow citizens in public services and social protection.

The thesis I defend today, as I defended when we looked at the budget, is that you create a budget situation that, tomorrow, will lead you to make dark cuts in social protection and in public services. You will have no other choice. You are already missing 3 billion euros by 2019. by Mr. Van Rompuy spoke of 8 billion euros. Personally, I think that if we add to the 3 billion all the revenues that, in my opinion, are fuzzy and do not hold the road, we reach a minimum of 5 billion euros. Where will you find 5 billion euros? You do not have thirty-six options. A first option is to raise consumer taxes, knowing that raising capital taxes will be very problematic for a government like yours. A second possibility is to make savings on public services, but where are you going to make them and how? The least we can say is that we are already at the bone. Finally, the last possibility is to affect social security. You have already begun. We talked about this during the budget review on the growth standard of health care.

I think it’s hard for the CD&V. This is not an attack directed against you. But the opposite! If you can remind, within the government, that social security is something important that protects workers, their families and a whole host of other vulnerable people, we will be there to help you. You are in the denial of a number of realities, it is not my fault. I’m just trying to tell you that touching social security is touching purchasing power.

For the rest, I recall that the previous government, in which you participated and in which we participated, has, on occasion, reduced contributions here and there, in a targeted way. Why targeted? Because we want it to be effective. But, at the same time, the Di Rupo government raised the tax on capital income by 7 billion euros. To be honest, these 7 billion don’t contribute entirely to alternative financing of social security. But in those 7 billion, you have had a dramatic increase in the pre-count of furniture from 15 to 25 percent and, from there, an alternative financing on social security. We have also done a work on stock options that will also fund social security in an alternative way. Whenever targeted reductions of employer social contributions were granted in exchange for job creation, in order to be as effective as possible, it was always ensured, when there were socialist participatory governments, to strengthen the alternative financing of social security. This is the truth that you do not want to hear!

Mr. Laaouej, I apologize for interrupting you again, something interesting is happening in the hemisphere. It started with me and I will try to make the plane land properly. At least that is my ambition.

What you say is interesting. Of course, there is the financing of the tax shift. We may come back later this morning or afternoon. The sp.a – I don’t say the socialists – says by the mouth of colleague Vanvelthoven that she is in favor of the reduction, but has a problem with the wise financing. The S.A. would prefer a property tax. We will discuss this later.

The PS says something else. The PS not only says it has a problem with how the tax shift is financed, the PS also says something else. The PS has made a distinction. There are the measures of the chapter on the first recruitments. Collega Daerden says that the PS is behind that, that those measures are linked to what the previous government has done and that they benefit small and medium-sized enterprises. So we get a thick thumb for everything concerning the first recruits.

Next, however, we come to chapter 3 on competitiveness and the reduction, among other things, of employer contributions. According to Mr. Daerden, in chapter 3, I quote: “A fetish that the government has been pursuing since the beginning of its tenure: the pursuit of competitiveness.”

As an objective observer of the debate, I can only state that the SP agrees to all reductions in the tax shift, but not to the funding. The PS says something else. The PS agrees to the reductions in terms of initial hiring, but has a fundamental problem with the reduction of employer contributions. The PS would have done differently. Therefore, I think there is a difference in view among the socialist family.

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Repeat what I say now. You have heard what I said. To summarize, the PS agrees to the reduction on the first hiring, but not to the reduction of the employer’s contribution.

That is the truth you are trying to hide. That is the truth. Read the report. Don’t worry, I am reading the report. You have differences within the Socialist family about the tax shift.

Mr Bogart, you have mentioned me. So I allow myself to react. I would like to ask you to either read the full report of the committee or come here as you are very interested in the matter. I think it would have been better if you had listened to my leader for a moment. She made it clear that we were not opposed to a reduction in social contributions but that we were opposed to the way you do it. It is simply that. So don’t try to oppose us, don’t mix everything! Just be rigorous in listening and analyzing what we say.

by Mr. Bogaert has known a form of lethargy since the beginning of the parliamentary session, that’s true! Then it appears again at the time of budgetary and tax work. The problem is that his sleep has been so long that he’s a bit confused, a little like waking up! Mr Bogart, I am prepared to hear all the arguments as long as they are a minimum of serious. I don’t doubt you’re a serious man, but for now you’re telling, in my opinion, a little bit anything!

Another point are the goals pursued by your tax reform. I repeat, I disagree that the reduction of employer contributions is part of a tax shift. than the opposite. People will pay for it. In order for a tax reform to be just, it must in any case be able to meet two main parameters: progressivity and redistribution. Because it is not enough to make a tax reform, we must also say that with this tax reform, we will try to improve the everyday life of the majority of the population.

The problem, Mr. Minister of Finance, is that for several weeks now we have asked you to provide us with tables measuring the effects on progressivity and redistribution. Progressivity is that as income increases, the ratio between tax and income also increases. Redistribution is comparing the distribution of income before and after taxation and observing a decrease in income inequalities after taxation.

At this point, we do not have these pictures. This means that you are navigating in sight, and we too. In order to be able to make such estimates, it is necessary to have the tools that the tax administration has at its disposal. These tables, of course, should not only include tax cuts on labor income. One could imagine that increasing the flat rate and increasing the exempt quota, and ⁇ expanding the slope of the slope (but this is a little more ambiguous) might possibly have a positive effect on progressivity. Maybe maybe .

There is an increase in electricity VAT. There is an increase in excise taxes. These are by nature regressive taxes, for which it is found that as income increases, the ratio between tax and income decreases. This means that you have certain effects that can be positive for progressiveness, but other effects that can be negative.

The integration of all these data into a simulator, one that your tax administration has, would have allowed us to see it a little more clearly. Unfortunately, we don’t have it, so that when you say “attention, you have to take everything into consideration,” you say to us “but not at all, look, with my tax reform, people will be entitled to 20, 30, 40 euros.” Not to mention the index.

I hope that we will be able to get this numbering as soon as possible, but this obviously throws a shadow on your statements, a doubt in any case, because we do not know today what the exact effects of your tax reform on progressivity and redistribution are. This is a real problem in terms of tax policy. Whenever measures have been decided over the past fifteen years, there has always been a measure on progressiveness and redistribution. Unfortunately, this time it is not so.

Let’s look at the different measures of your tax shift. We have talked a lot about electricity tax. I would like to remind you of the discussion we had with Mr. Bacquelin, but without insisting because he is not present. We are told that the increase in electricity VAT from 6% to 21% will be corrected in particular by tax cuts. Except pensioners don’t take full advantage of your tax deductions because they’re not active and some of your measures are focused only on assets. At the same time, the pensioners had an index jump. What compensates for the loss of available income due to increased electricity bills for pensioners? I don’t see anything in your policy, which is why you should be concerned. I also said that, when it comes to VAT, it would have a negative effect on the progressivity of compulsory levies.

I'm going to go to the VAT on aesthetic surgery. We told you that we had some concerns about the problem of reparative aesthetic surgery. You have provided a number of answers but we ask you to continue to be vigilant. There are dramatic situations that require access to this kind of care, which is indispensable to enable people to regain dignity either because of illness, an accident or due to birth difficulties.

There is little talk about the increase in diesel prices. According to our calculations, for someone who uses his car to go to work every day and who has a workplace relatively far from home, that could amount to up to 300 euros a year. Not everyone will have to pay that amount, but many are those who use their car to go to work and you will agree with me that there is also an impressive increase in this consumption tax, which also presents the disadvantage of being unfair in its nature.

We’ve talked a lot about the soda tax. You bet on a change in consumer behavior, with a kind of paternalism. I fear that this tax will be paid by families with a lot of children. We will also need to check here.

Also in the register of tax increases, I have separated, in my explanation, the taxes that are increased and the taxes that are reduced.

The tax on speculation amounts to 34 million euros. I am not referring to the debate that took place in the Finance Committee. This tax has two shortcomings. The first is to have it limited to operations that take place within the six months. What will happen if people sell at six months and one day? There is a real problem here. I can provide you with a comparative table, internationally, of the different value added tax schemes. In some schemes, consideration of temporality exists, and in this case it is only considered to modulate the rate. There is also a principle taxation. Some countries have a slightly different approach and tax the volume of surplus value achieved in a year. They modulate the rate or consider that there is an exemption.

As for you, you set a rate, you tax in less than six months and do not tax beyond six months. You create what is called a threshold effect. This may cause you to lose most of your recipe. I don’t think you’ve taken the problem on hand-to-body. I think there is something to be corrected.

In the case of the Caiman tax, you had the lucidity to understand that it would not return everything you had programmed, because here or there there were escapes. Do the same with the tax on speculation. I know that there is resistance within certain socio-economic groups, and with some lobbies, we can understand that.

However, you do not have the same scruples when it comes to increasing VAT or excise duties. Not even when it comes to taking on certain social rights. Does that mean that the millions of workers should be heard less than a quarter of speculators who are afraid of being taxed? by Mr. Cheron will remind us that a quarteron does not mean "four". At the same time, Mr. Cheron, I do not have the same physionomy as General de Gaulle, and I do not have that ambition. I think mr. Cheron has an important contribution to the debate. It is the end of the year and the council may not be unnecessary. Please Mr Cheron.

“Quarteron” is, first of all, a measure of wine. It is also an expression used by General de Gaulle to designate rebel generals in Algeria: he speaks more accurately of “a quarter of retired generals”. I don’t know if this is useful to you for tax shift, but you might be able to use it.

I look forward to putting your comment in my presentation. I will try to find something useful.

With regard to the Caiman tax, we are facing a difficulty. The opposition has shown that it can be constructive. The opinion of the State Council has just arrived, it is in translation. The question now arises, however, how we will organize the work. Ms. Onkelinx, our Group Leader, has clearly expressed her desire to result in a Conference of Presidents. But there was this hypothesis of the opinion of the State Council. I cannot predict its content. I remain in a constructive spirit and do not rule out the possibility of a vote today, after consultation. I can’t refine my analysis without having all the elements.

We look forward to this tax. I would like to remind you that Mr. Crombez, who had filed a similar bill, was also rejected by the right wing of the Di Rupo government. Eventually you found it a good idea and took it back to your account. The change you made to it restricted the scope of application. You have extended it. We can only compliment it, but only for wasted time.

About raising the furniture pre-account from 25 to 27%, you make some alternative financing. This will not compensate for what you will seek in reducing employer social contributions. Some hundreds of thousands of euros will not compensate for the deficit of social security financing.

Unlike what we did in previous governments, you are not really reinforcing alternative financing.

I am sorry that we are touching the citizen loan. I do not know who, among the Ministers of Finance CD&V, Mr. Vanackere or Mr. Geens had initiated the project. I know that it is mr. Geens who had finalised it and who had planned a favourable modality at the level of the furniture prepaid. So I do not understand why the CD&V group has let go of an increase in the taxation of income from citizen loans, while this was a good idea that had been realised together, with the aim of trying to reorient the finances toward fundamental needs of general interest. It is really a pity. I do not understand why this measure is adopted. I am not sure if it will bring a lot of money into the state treasures.

Regarding the reductions in the IPP, we can welcome the increase in flat-rate fees. You look at the rates. You go up the ceiling. It is very good! These measures will contribute directly to the increase in the available income of workers.

The principle of increasing the exempt quota is commendable. However, I will put two important beams. The first concerns the fact that you do not target the measure based on the level of income. Indeed, if you review the upward ceiling for the increased quota, you have not taken into account the fact that a person who earns, for example, 1 million euros, or even 500,000, 400,000 euros, or I know, may not need it. So it seems to me that in this matter, you could have targeted a little better and used the money released to strengthen the measurement. This is what you should have done. What you are going to do is neither more nor less strengthen the savings capacity of a number of people who, in terms of their income, do not need it.

I will not go back to the issue of pensioners. I am referring to the long exchanges we had in the Finance Committee. However, you make the choice to neutralize the tax advantage resulting from the increase of the exempt quota by decreasing the reduction of the replacement income tax.

This is a choice you make, but I don’t understand it from the moment when pensioners also pay indirect taxes such as VAT on the electricity you’ve raised. You have two arguments for this purpose.

The first is to say that you are going to target the assets and income from work in the strict sense of the term. In my opinion, replacement income also has a professional character. In addition, the Tax Code lists them in this category. The second is to argue that pensioners do not pay taxes, since they benefit from the tax reduction for incomes below €15,200 – I round.

This reasoning does not hold the way. It could have been valid if you hadn’t put retirees to contribute through the index jump or VAT on electricity. They deserve a tax reduction. You should not have opted for the tax reduction on replacement income. In this regard, I would be curious to know how much the gain you withdraw from this neutralization of the replacement income tax reduction is.

We have already talked about this in the Finance Committee. This is a full subject. Mr. Minister, it seems to me that we need to discuss this to see if this decision is justified, not only from a political point of view, but also from the point of view of basic tax justice.

Mr. Laaouej, I would like to point out, in the first place, however, that in 2008, when your party itself was at the wheel, the tax-free amount was increased and that your party also provided compensation and reduced the benefit of pensioners. So I think it is a punishment to blame us for something your party did in 2008.

Second, it is true that pensions are very low, the lowest pensions in Europe. Our government has made a firm and firm commitment to focus in the coming years primarily on measures related to the lowest pensions, so that those concerned receive a higher pension. We have also said that we will make full use of the wealth envelope to meet it. In addition, the disc of 30% disappears, which also benefits the retirees.

The pensions are low and a pensioner with a low pension would like to earn extra money. Those who do well can usually count on all kinds of structures and companies, where they can still work after retirement or liquidate.

Our measures are specifically intended for people with a small pension who would very much like to earn something extra. Until now, the soup is not worth the cabbage for a retired person who contributes a few hours; he pays more than what he gets out. We want to do something about that. All the steps taken here, including the removal of the 30% disc and the shift in the discs, will contribute to this.

We are not responsible for the low pensions and we want them to rise safely and firmly. I do not find your argument fair, because even now you take one small measure out of a full package of tax shift that is a problem for a target group. I would like to remind you once again that in 2008 your party worked in the same way.

Madame Wouters, I remind you that at the initiative of the PS group and the sp.a group, this assembly passed a law that increases the tax reduction for pensioners, in order to avoid the following perverse effect: when they benefited from an increase from the welfare envelope, they came to see that increase completely neutralized, absorbed by an increase in their taxes. Also, do not blame the Socialist Party for things that it sets out through parliamentary initiatives!

There is a difference. One can very well imagine, if one wants to target a tax measure on assets, to neutralize it for some replacement income. The difference between 2008 and today is that in 2008, there was no index jump on pensions. There is no increase in electricity VAT. This is the difference, Madame Wouters.

As for the problem of the 30 percent rate, I will send you tables, which show you that, unfortunately, most pensioners will not be entitled to it; in fact, pensioners with incomes below 15 200 euros do not already pay the tax. They will not benefit from this expansion, which will benefit, but a small proportion of pensioners receiving an average pension.

This was discussed in the Finance Committee. I am, of course, willing to continue the discussion. If you agree, considering that you have made a mistake, we are quite ready to support a legislative initiative.

However, the project has some positive aspects. With regard to the deduction for investments, you double it. This reflects the fact that one will now be interested not in the resources of a company but in the use it makes of them and so, instead of working on the balance sheet passive, work on the balance sheet asset. This is a very good decision!

They target SMEs. You are right to do it! These measures should not be very expensive. Within the framework of a smart corporate tax reform, we could go looking for funds in certain tax niches, which ultimately unfairly benefit, by their offset effect, large companies, without creating jobs, investment, to re-inject them into SMEs.

To do this, you have a tool: the deduction for investment which, by the way, does not develop bureaucracy. In fact, people fill out a form, the 276K of memory. They explain the investment they have made. This should be a new investment, not an opportunity. They enter the amount, they apply the rate and they get what they can deduct. The official of the tax administration comes once a year or every two or three years, to check the investment. He then gives his approval and people have their tax deduction. These are steps that can be done very easily during a tax inspection. by Mr. Piedboeuf will not contradict me. I think this is a very positive point that deserves to be welcomed.

Similarly, thanks to the measures of previous governments, our share of research and development in relation to GDP has increased quite significantly. These are small percentages, but in relation to GDP, it is significant. This increase should be emphasized.

We are also looking forward to seeing increased deduction for high technology. Why Why ? This is the real problem of competitiveness. It is not by suffocating workers with wage cuts, index jumps, etc. that you will succeed. It is the improvement of the quality of our economy that will allow us to strengthen our exports, not to forget our domestic demand, because by depriving people of a part of their income, you weaken domestic demand. This is the opposite of the policy you are conducting. Dedicate your energy and creativity to see how you will be able to boost structural competitiveness, research and innovation. Talk to the regions. Talk to the Communities about universities. Let’s make a big national plan for research and development. This is what needs to be done. The tax tool can be interesting in this context.

Let us not lose sight of the fact that there are already fiscal measures that cost the Treasury expensive, including all the taxation on patents that in any case positions us in an interesting way. There is nothing to do, some Scandinavian countries, which have levels of compulsory taxation similar to ours, have strategies for twenty or thirty years that allow them today to have ⁇ interesting and encouraging economic prospects. Why not follow this path, even if I repeat it, thanks to the efforts of previous governments, we are on the right path?

The financing of the tax shift, we talked about it on the occasion of the budget; I will not stay there. I fear unfortunately that you are forced to announce bad news to our fellow citizens.

I have to regret the lack of dialogue with the regions. You might have been able to refine with them the terms of your tax reform to prevent them from being placed in the face of the actual fact of a loss of their income. It was possible to do it. This was possible because there are modalities for reducing taxes that have no effect on the Regions. But that was not your choice. I therefore reiterate my call for a dynamic budgetary federalism that brings you, Mr. Minister of Finance, to see your three colleagues regularly. Once every month, every two months, every three months... I’m not going here to set you a calendar because I’m not sure you could follow it. But I really invite you to do so; fiscal federalism is not just a political cocktail, it is a strategic approach to the reports we must have with Europe first and then it is to be able to give our public finances the chance to be healthy by avoiding insoluble political problems that delay decisions. Look at what is happening with tax regularization, which is returned to the Consultation Committee, to take only this example. I could also quote the episode of the 750 million, which has wasted a lot of energy to everyone; energy, time and money if I can say.

I come to employment. I look at the National Bank’s latest forecasts that, in net balance, speak of 14,000 additional jobs by 2017. Fourteen thousand jobs for such a major tax reform, all this is not very encouraging! Reports from the National Bank and the Plan Bureau mentioned the absence of ex ante financing of your tax shift, in excess of 6 billion euros, and eventually concluded that there will be a deterioration of public debt of 1.1 of GDP.

The employment prospects you advance to justify your reform lead me to consider that public money is misplaced. There were ways to do otherwise, by targeting better, in particular by not compressing domestic demand by increasing consumer taxes, but by targeting the plates that do not have a detrimental effect on the economy, namely, among other things, the income derived from speculation. But not as you did, but in a more decisive way.

In conclusion, dear colleagues, thanking you once again for the quality of your contributions – even Mr. Bogaert, let’s not be greedy for compliments – I just want to tell you that if we want to fundamentally rethink our tax system, we will not escape the question of globalization. This system, introduced in 1962 and replaced the four credit taxes, aimed at more progressivity, more tax justice, more efficiency and more simplicity. I know, Mr. Minister, that simplifying taxation is included in your general policy statement. Nothing is easier than globalization.

You will tell me that by globalizing, some will pay more taxes, including the middle class. The problem can be solved by releasing the exempt quota. This is one of the techniques. But making sure that the entire income from labour, capital can be globalized to be subjected, together, to a progressive IPP pattern does not seem to me to be lacking in intelligence – let me be a little presumptuous – but above all in efficiency. We could thus meet this requirement that, I hope, we share together: strengthening tax justice.

I will be a little lighter and less technical, because forced to say the same things for weeks, we end up getting tired, especially when we hear the same things all the time.

When you get up in the morning, the day is coming, you can’t know how it will unfold or how it will end. You are not alone in a bottle. The gestures to be made, the steps to be taken depend on the immediate or distant environment, the encounters, the events that arise there and there during our journey.

Our own choices, if they may be conditioned by these contextual elements, remain, however, the central element of the success or failure of the approach undertaken. No need for example, we all have had the opportunity in our lives to perceive signs, to have influences, a foresight of an event or the consequences of a choice. Proper preparation, reflection, care to secure options reduce the risks. But certainty is never total, and even if one cannot rely entirely on the maxim that luck smiles to the daring, it remains that at some point one must dare the step, dare the gesture, and bet on success. It is a matter of culture, a philosophy, a world view and a belief in man and his abilities: the ability to undertake, the ability to work, the ability to understand and exercise his choices. Depending on whether one decides alone or with several, the line may vary, but strengthening one option by a joint option, enriching the reflection by that of one partner does not necessarily lead to a compromise that mitigates the desired effect. On the contrary, it can give more strength, overall coherence, motivation to a project. This is especially true when we share the same view. This is the power of our government, of our government.

It is said that the shock of ideas sheds the light. We want to illuminate the path of our country with a new vision, new enthusiasm. We, liberals, together with our partners, want to mark a different path, a different vision of society. A vision that strengthens the taste for undertaking and the will to create, that gives the desire to work and that leaves no one behind; because our solidarity is active, because attention to others is in our genes. One can tell what one wants, one can appropriate what one wants, one cannot rewrite the history of our social movements marked by the seal of freedom and intelligent emancipation.

Our country, our dear country, despite its sometimes peripheral errors, needs enthusiasm. We have that enthusiasm. We want to inspire our enthusiasm. We have researchers, inventors, entrepreneurs, workers who ask for nothing but the freedom to devote themselves to their work and receive a just return for their efforts. More ⁇ , more jobs, less taxes, more income, that’s what people want, that’s what we want.

So, to really make hope live, we must do what is to be done, we must take the measures that are to be taken. We are not illusionists, we have our feet on the ground, and if our bet succeeds, we can do even better because we have started the movement. We don’t know if we’ll succeed, but one thing we’re sure, Mr. Gilkinet, is that if we don’t do what we’ve planned, then we’re sure we won’t.

Very nice argument, Mr. Piedboeuf, with a lot of conviction. I can join you on some things. A budget, your tax shift, is a bet. I think you have a very large convergence. You claim to have added the qualities of the majority parties. Sometimes I wonder if this is not an addition to your shortcomings. You said at the moment, that’s where I reacted: “if the bet succeeds.” We always have to start with that idea.

My difficulty, in analyzing the numbers, even if there are measures we support, is that the bet is uncertain. The financing of your measures lacks solidity. We are likely to face a much larger public deficit tomorrow.

I am generally optimistic about the nature of men and the effectiveness of public policies. But I rely here on the analysis of the European Commission, which, even though it has said positive things about the current fiscal year – that is its ideology – still questions about the budget balance. I am not going to repeat the litany of the budget debate, but you have in mind the remarks of the Court of Auditors and the State Council that have compelled you to remove certain elements of the text that aimed at financing the tax shift. I feel like you are jumping out of the plane without a parachute and followed by all our fellow citizens. Who will collect the pieces?

Beyond your conviction, which is nice to hear, I need more solid, factual and argumented elements. You seem to practice self-persuasion, wishful thinking, magical thinking about it. But, at some point, solid things are needed when managing a state. Beyond the literary qualities of your speech, I do not find these mathematical elements.

You have obviously read the opinions of the Plan Bureau, the opinions of the Commission, those of the National Bank, those of international experts. They are different, but they go in the same direction. We are not only doing what we have been told to do for a long time, but we are anticipating results that we fundamentally believe can be achieved.

We have just been measured in the forecasts to be some of these effects. Our bet is that we will be able to go further if we succeed.

I read the same documents as you. I do not deny that the Plan Bureau and the National Bank believe that this tax shift of 6 or 8 billion should create jobs, and I look forward to this. This is a significant expense, it is an investment, in a difficult budgetary context and the relationship between cost and job created, the rational and efficient use of resources, is really problematic. I am not asking better that there are more returns than announced, that there are more jobs than announced and more of our fellow citizens who will be able to get out of a situation they have not chosen and therefore more funding of social security.

But you deny all indicators that show that this will not be the case and that we will come to an even greater deficit, which you will want to resolve with even harsher measures than those already taken by your government and the previous one. You have not agreed to make enough effort in terms of capital income. You have an extremely classical vision of the economy and you have no vision of the sectors of the economy that will be the drivers of better shared jobs, well-being and prosperity. I regret it, even though there are some positive aspects. I will repeat it soon.

We do not have the same vision. We agree, we do not see the same thing. I repeat, we don’t know if we’ll succeed, but we’re sure that if we don’t do what we’re doing, we won’t.

Faced with the strategy deployed by some, who are trying to scare retirees, faced with the slogan approaches that, as we respond, move from the slogan to the outraged caricature, we oppose a list of measures that, from the announcement of actions, has transformed into texts of laws that we will vote with enthusiasm and conviction. Others peel out electoral programs, trying to make them believe a renunciation or even a lie – it becomes a fashionable vocabulary. We all know that insult is the weapon of the weak. As Alfred Capus once said, “You have to dream very high in order not to ⁇ too low.” This is what we are trying to do!

Each brings its own sensitivity, preferences, impossibilities, and the synthesis translates into strong and ambitious measures. In a difficult economic environment, with a labor-driven growth rate, we want to inspire momentum.

Mr. Piedboeuf, I appreciate you very much. I think we are working very well in the Finance Committee. We also have a very good chairman.

However, I do not see where the insults occurred. I think it is outspoken. I think the debate deserves better. I don’t see where there were insults in my speech.

Not at all! Not on your part. I mentioned here the terms of lies that are so often used in the last few months in Wallonia in general. I did not mention you. With regard to the drawing up of the electoral program, I made reference to the last intervention of Mr. I am in the committee, but I am not in the committee because he is not present.

In his speech, I congratulated Mr. Pique. to Laoui. But I also want to congratulate you so far for your speech because it’s a pretty general speech, almost a philosophical Christmas tale. This is suitable for this period. Somewhere, your speech and the intonation of your voice are quite comforting. All our colleagues and all those who listen to us in this country will be comforted. Your contribution is quite positive during this time of Christmas. The awakening will be tough from January 1, 2016, but I really think your speech is appropriate. So don’t go too far into the details. Therefore, you can be largely trusted. This is what you have avoided so far. The tone is also appropriate. Thank you very much, Mr Piedboeuf.

It is the spirit and spirit of Christmas. Hosanna in the highest heavens!

The first objective is to increase competitiveness. My colleague, Ahmed Laaouej, welcomed the positive measures. We believe that reducing employers’ burden from 33% to 25% in the long run is a good measure. This helps to eliminate the wage disability with our neighbors. Whether you like it or not, it’s like that.

Self-employed ⁇ and SMEs are exempted from employer contributions for their first employment. This is a strong measure. There is a gradual decrease in social contributions. This is a strong measure. As the mr. Laaouej said, there is an increase in the deduction for investments from 4 to 8 percent and the same for high-tech. These are good measures that can boost economic activity and encourage investment.

It is also worth mentioning the anticipations of the exemption from professional prepayment, initially planned for 2019, but reduced to 2016. The same applies to the high-tech industry.

Next, we also encourage the private sector to invest in the construction of social housing and schools by reducing the VAT rate.

The second objective is to strengthen purchasing power to further reward work. A first step was the reduction of the fixed workload, the extension of the employment bonus and the social bonus. The second is in the form of an increase. The third will involve an increase in fixed professional expenses, the reform of tax rates and the increase of the exempt quota. This is very important in terms of purchasing power.

The financing of this reform has often been discussed. Apart from what has been mentioned, it is based on a taxation of capital. In this regard, we will return to the perception of the Caiman tax, which I hope we will be able to agree on today. The tax on speculation is another tool. We are now talking about six months. Why not six months and a day or seven months? At some point, it is necessary to define and set the framework. This is speculation, as the finance minister said. This is how we look at short-term speculation.

When it comes to strengthening the fight against tax fraud, we have seen that the minister has developed a plan, which we support. Of course, further clarifications need to be made. If you ask me if the MR agrees with this or that, I will answer what I have already said in the committee: one cannot be out of office against certain measures, which obviously need to be framed, such as home visits or searches – topical topic that was mentioned. We will discuss it.

Mr. Pietro, you said this in the committee. Ms. Wouters and Van Cauter had burned before you the minister’s sharpest options. Therefore, you do not wet yourself much. You know that no consensus will be reached within the government around the measures presented in the note "Fighting Tax Fraud" of Mr. The President, whom I greeted.

I will play the optimist. Will you support our proposals to apply within our tax administration the same standards of exchange of information that we have just adopted in the case of foreigners with accounts in Belgium? We discussed yesterday with the Minister of Justice – and it was a bit hard for him – the fight against terrorism, which also involves fighting terrorist financing. But when it comes to fighting large financial crime and large tax fraud, which costs public finances 10 to 20 billion a year, will you be our ally in this area? Your words do not engage you much.

Unfortunately, the minister’s policy note, which had not been approved by the government, was a first-class funeral, a straw fire. Nevertheless, I take note with interest of your commitment to be our ally; I will therefore propose you to co-sign the texts we submit on this subject.

Before you, we had a liberal finance minister for over ten years. It did not organize the fight against tax fraud especially effectively. This is an euphemism.

The work must be done at the moment it appears. There are moments for everything. We all agree on the issue of combating tax fraud. We all want everyone to pay the tax they owe. We will work to determine what the MR and I will support. I have no problem working on all themes.

To take the example of the home visit, when we know that there is a proven, serious, and occurring fraud, we can very well design a whole arsenal of measures. It is simply necessary to set things up well. You cannot make home visits to all merchants at any time of day and night. The money has to be paid, and that’s what the Minister of Finance said in his statement. The means must be appropriate to what is sought. Together we will establish the appropriate means. There are no taboo. We need to reach the result that we have set for ourselves. We voted for a budget in which revenues from the fight against tax fraud are planned. We want to understand these revenue.

I come to the information. We will already take care of all those who come from banks around the world to try to make our tax arsenals work. We will see what we will do in Belgium. I am referring to mr. Laaouej and Van Hees; the Belgian fiscal authority has a whole range of means to reach these results. I was a tax advisor. I fought with the taxpayer and this one has the means. It should not be said that the Belgian taxpayer is not controlled.

The National Bank and the Plan Office also estimated the impact and, by establishing all the macroeconomic parameters, concluded a significant improvement in growth, employment and household available income. It’s not us who say it, it’s them.

Both simulations also predict, in different ways and we will probably see in January, return effects. These are different from one agency to another and we will discuss them if the chairman of the committee agrees to hear the leaders of these agencies so that they explain to us their economic models.

I will not be much longer because everything has already been said and repeated for weeks.

We came to work to put a team in place. The government has succeeded in a program of convergence of ideas and ambitions. Thro ⁇ the year, the teams have worked to implement this development engine with conviction. Our group will calmly but fiercely support this major fiscal and social reform that is betting on the future.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Minister, Mrs. Minister, colleagues, CD&V has come to the voters with economic growth and social progress. We are now in the time of desires.

The [...]

You should make the evaluation at the end, Mrs. Temmerman. It is never good to evaluate at first.

Mrs. Temmerman and Mr. Vanvelthoven, if certain parties wish to make statements during an election campaign, they are qualified too quickly as empty election promises. It is clear that what lies ahead now can pass the test of what we said then: economic growth and social progress. It would only be unjustifiable if we didn’t care about pensions and raising the retirement age and if we left it to the generation of politicians who will come after us. It was noted by your former party chairman who said that he knew what would happen to the pensions, but that he would not get elected. We want our voters to look at that in 50 years.

The [...]

Mrs. Temmerman, you can never deceive your voters by engaging.

That is precisely why the tax shift is included in the government agreement. The first tax shift has already taken place. It is not just a single moment of grinding that presents itself as a complete package. No, it is really a construction by this government team, with this majority. The first tax shift was implemented at the end of 2014.

After that, we also pledged with our group to go even further, to take another step forward. We have asked to strengthen the competitiveness of our companies and to create even more jobs in our country.

Of course, the second tax shift was necessary, as the colleagues in the committee have also cited, because of the competitiveness. After all, we must not forget that there was effectively a problem with the declining figure of Belgian exports. This was rightly mentioned during the plenary debate on the budget this week.

We could say, ⁇ contrary to some factions, that the three-dimensional 3D plan, the social and economic dimension, wrapped by a strong government, today has become much more reality. The government agreement speaks in these of a substantial reduction of burdens, away from labour. Well, if you look at what is being delivered now, you clearly see that we keep our word. We will ensure an agreement with a concrete drafting of the tax shift by the end of 2015. Just over a year after the start of this government, this economic growth is realized with social progress.

It is paradoxical, however, that the criticism is that it is a kibble cabinet and that there is a quarrel. Of course, when it comes to fundamental choices, it crashes extra hard, but sometimes it needs to be seriously linked before an egg can be laid. People from a rural environment will be able to confirm that sometimes there is some fight between the cockroaches and the chickens before something is produced. Therefore, the kibble should not be understood as negative. The results count and they are discussed today.

Like the Kaimantax in its further refinement, this design fits in the quest for a better fiscal balance between taxes on income, capital and consumption. A good balance between these three pillars is what we need to keep on our radar for the long term.

It is strange for me that there are for and against this tax shift. One can oppose a particular measure or a particular article, but especially people who have not read what is here on the banks today say that it is not a good tax shift or that they cannot support it.

However, it cannot be denied that there is also a view to supporting purchasing power. During the discussions, the opposition has often pretended that the pensioners are not served by this draft, as if they are ignored in the elaboration of the tax shift. Well, there is the full financing and allocation of the wealth envelope. There is also the careful adjustment of the additional tax reduction for pensions and replacement income.

I know that certain scenarios have been covered up and that with absurd reasoning they have tried to show that what is given here is taken away there again. Those who make simulations, however, must look at the totality and also look at all the refinements and all fiscal and social provisions globally. Then we see that it is precisely for the low-income, for the people with low pensions and for the pensioners in general that surely compensation increasing purchasing power is in question.

I will give the example of the increase in the holiday fee, which is no longer tax-removed.

Mr. Deseyn, you say you take one element and then another and draw conclusions, but you have a global vision. Do you have one or two examples at hand? For example, the pensioner who reaches 1,200 euros gross pension, what does he earn and what does he lose taking into account all the elements (index jump, welfare envelope, electricity VAT, tax reform)? Do you have two or three examples to support your claim that all retirees earn total?

Mr. Laaouej, you forget, of course, that very sophisticated schemes have been developed precisely for the overall exemption from low pensions. One cannot let people who are already fully under the regime of tax exemption accumulate the surpluses. It is necessary to look at where the tax needs are the highest. If you think about retirees, then you can look at the abolition or expansion of certain tax discs. However, there are also other measures, for example, I think of the compensation around VAT and electricity. You will then see that even for the most needy pensioners there are interesting measures.

Mr. Deseyn, you can’t say in this tribune that a small retiree comes out winning from all the measures you take. If you take them alone, for example from the angle of the wellness envelope, then of course. But this is the whole you need to take. At this point, we do not have these estimates. We did not receive a table coming from the government, aligning all measures and drawing the balance. The Minister of Finance speaks about his fiscal reform, the Minister of Pensions speaks to us about the revaluation of low pensions, a third tells us what he has done, without forgetting the global index jump and without forgetting that we must also integrate all the measures of tax increase that some within the government are trying to hide. You can’t say in this tribune that all pensioners will win and that none will lose. You cannot say that!

I can only agree with what Mr. Laououej says. Of course, we must look at the whole. For the pensioners in Flanders, therefore, all the measures taken by the Flemish government must be taken. If you only talk about tax cuts, two out of three private sector pensioners will not be able to benefit from it. Two on three. That is a whole suit. Then you dare to argue here that the government does everything and everything for those with the lowest pensions. I think it really over.

Mrs. Temmerman, that is of course the difference between your approach and ours. It is very easy to talk about linear measures, but here, in times of budgetary tightness, exactly choices are made, for the lowest incomes and for the most vulnerable. You will always find a scenario where someone actually gets a little less than someone else. That is normal.

However, it is one of two things. You cannot, on the one hand, say that we have not yet a total simulation in which all measures are discounted and, on the other hand, say that you can already accurately demonstrate that two-thirds are not eligible for government interventions. This is a little coherent reasoning.

In addition to competitiveness, fair taxation – which may make you smile a little more – was also a topic of tax shift. Well, the proposed tax shift also contributes to an increase in tax justice. Important steps have been taken, which we should remember again. I’m talking about the speculative tax, the moving pre-tax and the kaaimantax. It is true, our party was very ambitious in that. She asked for more in this regard. However, I think it is much better to get a defensive compromise on the banks today than to watch along the sideline with no commitment at all, so that nothing can actually happen.

The project of fair taxation remains of course important. It is also far from over. We will continue to address this; it will remain a policy for our group so that the focus is not lost. When we talk about fair taxation, it is not just about shifting taxes. The tax shift has already taken several steps here. However, we must also look at the existing rules and their application. Therefore, the fight against tax fraud is also a real top priority.

Everyone has to acknowledge this and ⁇ the opposition has done it. It was so enthusiastic that, after a long discussion, it proposed month after month to use a boardboard to check whether the Minister’s plan to combat tax fraud can be properly developed. If that is not a big support for the plans of the majority, then I don’t know either.

Fighting fraud does not only happen at the domestic level, it is a global given. It is therefore very good that we have the entire transposition of the Aid Directive already behind at the beginning of the legislature. There has been a lot of skepticism over the past few months as to whether we could at all realize such a tax shift as is currently anticipated. Ultimately, the cumulative amount of the shifts amounts to as much as 7 billion euros. Had our group not permanently put pressure on the boiler and found support from the majority, we would never have reached such a nice sum. The wealthy and, by extension, those who generate income from capital contribute both directly and indirectly through the movable tax, the speculative tax, the VAT and the excise duties. The low wages and middle wages are further supported by large-scale burden reductions and specific measures in various sectors.

As regards the sectoral approach, it would be worth the recommendation to further tailor the sector in future policies. It is very difficult to compare the competitive position of one sector with that of another. There was, of course, a general urgency regarding competitiveness. There have been dramatic reductions in wage loans when you look at the tables, especially for first-time employees. That intervention has now taken place, but with the few money, which will be available in the future, it would be better to make even more targeted choices tailored to the sectors to not only reduce the wage burden but also strengthen competitiveness.

We rolled the ball of the tax shift. The opposition was a little in the role of the rabbit, if I can take the fable of the turtle and the rabbit. The opposition rabbit then proposes to quickly let the thing explode, because it is all wrong and not properly arranged. The opposition rabbit was convinced that in the big jump he would defeat the turtle. It is always good to listen before going to bed until the end of the analogy, or one could draw wrong lessons out of it. However, most of those fables have a strong pedagogical aspect, Mr. Laaouej. Per ⁇ I can finish my reasoning.

Make up your reasoning.

Let me talk about our turtle position.

Mr. Speaker, the turtle declared that it would win anyway and so it happened. After all, the rabbit had made some mistakes, not only to the laws of nature, but above all to the laws of politics. I can, by analogy of the fable, refer to the criticism and unbelief of the past weeks and months. It was said that nothing would come out of the tax shift. It would be a dead mouse. They were only words, not actions. It did not go far enough.

The second tax shift is here. It took a lot of time and effort. However, now that the minds are maturing, we can ⁇ come to a more fundamental revision of our taxation in the long run.

The turtle will get it!

We need to see if the shell of the turtle is as strong as it claims.

Do you agree, Mr. Deseyn, with the estimates of Mr. Van Rompuy believes that at least 8 billion additional efforts will likely need to be made by 2019.

As with any budget estimate, this is about difficult to predict developments. One could, of course, give a lecture and I think colleague Van Rompuy had enough arguments to say that the effort that will have to happen will be very significant and will cover large volumes.

You are always creating confusion because you do not want to look at the measures contained in the tax shift for the financing of the tax shift and because you are constantly linking the general budget challenge to the measures of the tax shift. However, the tax shift is financed by itself, the minister has shown that in abundance. However, this does not exclude the need for very large budgetary efforts in the multiannual planning, which in fact involves volumes of several billion.

However, one should not be confused with the other. One cannot say that this tax shift is irresponsible because it is not financed because there are generally large budgetary challenges. They are exactly those two levels that you always want to get through each other in the debate in order to prove the great equality of the one or the other.

I agree with what Mr. Deseyn says.

Mr. Laaouej, we do not differ so much on the objective. The Governor of the National Bank says that in 2018-2019 we must go to balance, whether nominally or structurally, I leave in the middle. The National Bank says, and this was confirmed by the European Commission, that in 2017 we may still have a deficit of 2.5% of GDP, which is about 9 billion. However, the National Bank does not take into account the proceeds from the anti-fraud and the possible redesign and estimates the proceeds from the increase in electricity VAT lower than the government.

I do not speak about the tax neutrality of the tax shift because the committee has learned that one can have different opinions about the revenues. In 2017, 2018 and 2019, and that is also stated in the general explanation, we will need to make efforts, 2 billion in 2017, 2 billion in 2018 and 3,2 billion in 2019. If we add that, we also get around 7 to 8 billion, which is in the same order of size.

As regards the proceeds of tax shift itself, those measures, and ⁇ the capital proceeds such as the chaimantax, the mobile advance tax and possibly also the fight against fraud, remain uncertain factors. These are related to capital, taxes and anti-fraud and can not be attached to the exact amounts.

The fact that efforts will need to be made in the coming years in order to reach a zero balance is independent of the discussion whether the tax shift itself is neutral or not. Much depends on economic development. You know that too. If, partly through the tax shift, we can raise the growth and employment figures by 2017-2018, then the fiscal context will look entirely different than if we didn’t do anything today and wait. On the other hand, we are injecting purchasing power of 2% of GDP, for approximately 8 billion. I said that yesterday too. One must take risks, because doing nothing is not an option, not even in terms of export. The driving force of the Belgian economy is not only consumption but also exports. That’s actually why CD&V wanted to start the tax shift, namely because labor costs must go down and have to be cheaper. Therefore, I am disappointed with the statements of the socialist side.

The essence of the tax shift is a reduction in employer contributions and a reduction in labor costs to stimulate employment and growth. We have done everything we can to preserve the purchasing power, in the sense that the National Bank says the real available income will increase by 2% in 2 to 3 years. In 2015 and 2016 the National Bank speaks of an increase of 1%.

What I said is therefore entirely consistent with what Mr. Deseyn says. We will not be able to calm down on our laurels over the next few years regarding the budget. These questions arise, but will also depend on economic development. They do not have much to do with the fact that the government would so-called deliberately create a hole. It will generally be a problem, but even without tax shift we would have had a problem in 2017-2018. We should look at how the situation will evolve in the coming years, but we should not throw the child away with the bath water.

Mr. Van Rompuy, the more I listen to you, the more obscure it becomes. I do not quite understand what the position and analysis of the CD&V is. by Mr. Deseyn did not answer the question I asked him about whether or not he retained the 8 billion you mentioned. If you actually find yourself with a need for funding of 8 billion, you will need to explain how you found them. Eight billion returns, it seems to me a lot.

Will you need to take further measures? Will these measures not have a negative impact on employment because they would be tax increases or savings in public spending, i.e. a decrease in public demand?

I think the C of CD&V, today, is the C of confusion. We are in the most complete confusion. I do not know how you are doing to hear you within the government on the budget trajectories.

A small parenthesis, with more than 2% of available income, does not mean much. The question that arises is how this increase is distributed among people. That is what is important. If your increase in available income leads to an increase in savings, you will not have effectively arranged or supported domestic demand.

I regret to see that, once again, you disagree within the government about the effort that remains to be made due to the decisions you are making. This is a real problem.

I may have a gift idea for the New Year: a compass for the CD&V. Per ⁇ he will make good use of it to find himself in the mist he himself creates.

Mr. Deseyn, this is indeed a difficult exercise for you. Beautiful metaphor of the liar and the turtle.

I confirm that our group, in the context of topical issues in particular, has asked the majority very regularly where this tax reform remains that should transfer the cost of labour to other incomes and allow to reduce the cost of labour and increase the contribution of capital to the financing in particular of social security.

With the government, you are the turtle, you have taken your time.

But the copy you give us is rattled, full of uncertainties, full of questions about the future, that Mr. Van Rompuy tries, in his capacity as chairman of the Finance Commission, while being in the majority, to highlight, especially on Sunday when he gets bored and writes on his blog. I thank him for his freedom of speech and for the fact that a member of the majority dares to say that the account is not quite correct.

Your tax shift is not our tax shift! If we can support certain measures, we cannot approve those related to the distribution of income, the transformation of our economy towards a model of a less carbon future, the efficiency of resource allocation. Therefore, we will defend amendments. Mr. Deseyn, the turtle provided what it calls a tax shift, "carpe, I baptize you rabbit," but the result is not quite satisfactory.

Mr. Deseyn, I will not repeat what my colleagues from the opposition have said and with which I totally agree. However, I would like to address, through you, Mr Van Rompuy with the words that the disappointment is mutual.

Mr. Van Rompuy, it hasn’t been long since CD&V ⁇ ined high and low here, by Mr. Vercamer, that everyone should contribute to that tax shift, everyone. You were in favor of a value-added tax so that the assets would also contribute to the expansion of this country’s future. Only now we find that CD&V has left this path. This is also a very great disappointment.

Of course, it is about reducing wages. Mr. Van Rompuy, you continue to say that we are against it. No, not at all. We only want a targeted reduction in wages because it creates more jobs, and we want to finance them differently. Again, not long ago, ⁇ a month or six, your party also thought that the reduction of wages had to be financed in part by capital and wealth. I am deeply disappointed that, among other things, you have not received the value added tax you were in favour of. That is a great disappointment.

Mr. Speaker, I will first answer the question of Mrs. Temmerman. I don’t know where she got that CD&V cut off at that point. The preparatory documents are ready, the working group is ready. It is not because there is not yet an agreement on everything that one must refuse to see the good that already lies on the banks. So I don’t know where you get that from.

As for the value-added tax, Mrs. Temmerman, there is the rise of the speculation tax as it predicts. This is a value-added tax in addition to the other value-added taxes already in the system. That this is not a closed matter for us is also true. Your assertion that this is no longer a problem for CD&V is therefore not at all relevant. Indeed, everything can be better. I would like to answer your question with the answer that I will also give Mr. Laaouej.

He said, “It’s the C of confusion.” I would rather say, “Rest assured, it’s above all the C of creativity but also of coalition and belief in this tax shift!”

You have also noted that we need to reach a certain balance from work. This was also the observation of other members. That is almost the idea. Fiscal expenditure will indeed be needed to finance competitiveness. That is the whole idea of the tax shift, also in the light of the economic forecasts of the coming years, namely that we will cut now, in order to better flourish. If a patient is reanimated with oxygen, the doctor has lost the oxygen but he has reanimated his patient. This is the exercise that goes on today. We will indeed finance everything through tax spending, to boost the economy and generate sufficient income in the long run.

I don’t understand why the opposition has so much trouble with the fact that someone complains that Parliament is doing its job and puts a number of questions into the multiannual budget. It would only be bad if one is already seeing blind, want to wipe the problem under the mat and want to spend extra money and if one finds the balance completely no problem anymore and also wipe the long-term vision and the sustainability of the table. Colleagues, it adorns someone who points out exactly this and who proposes to confess the budgetary orthodoxy well in word and deed in the coming time. If we do not take any stricter measures in the coming months and years, we risk missing the European boat.

Mr. Gilkinet, you point out that my tax shift is not your tax shift. The difference between your and my tax shift will be that our tax shift will be approved. That is a fact and not an insignificant difference.

It is true that the Belgian tax system will need to be further modernized. In the light of our New Year wishes, with which I have begun, we must examine the work programme for the coming years.

Without becoming too technical, I can say that we have already launched the idea of the dual income tax. We have been advocating for this for a while. It can be seen in many modes because there are quite a few variants. It’s not just about increasing taxes and getting people to pay more; it’s essentially a simplification. This simplification is still lacking. We know that the tax system is very complex and the more complex, the more likely it is to be abused. If we want more efficiency and more justice, we must definitely work on simplifying the system in the coming years. This will be an important task for the Minister of Finance. Fortunately, the principle is black on white in the government agreement. The capstone is there.

Mr. Deseyn, this question intrigues me a lot. Why did you accept the increase in tax on citizen loans? This measure was put in place by CD&V, during the previous legislature. The idea was to introduce attractive taxation on those loans that finance investments of general interest. Why did your group accept the increase in the tax on citizen loans?

Mr Laaouej, you are referring to the thematic public loans. In that regard, it was chosen for more uniformity in the system, with an option for certain matters that one still wanted to support. It is clear that this exercise has not yet been completed. Many matters have been harmonised, especially in the moving premium, after its occurrence, which we experienced in the previous legislature. There are some exceptions to the left and right. However, the line we maintain is aimed at getting as many things on the same level as possible. This increases transparency. Initiatives may be taken depending on very specific needs or sectors. This applies, for example, to SMEs, which you point out in each presentation, so that we can go a lot further for SMEs. By the way, this government has made even more diversification among large and small companies, with the micro-companies. From the same reasoning, you might ask why we also do not draw all that equal, but we do not, of course, live in a communist system where we could shave all measures on one chest. We must also justify diversification, as it presents itself socially and economically in society. The consideration, however, remains to reach more uniformity; there can be no doubt about this.

Colleagues, on certain aspects announced in the tax shift agreement, you will read little in the texts today. The Minister spoke about this, when he spoke about the redesign of the government and the specialized investment vehicles for real estate, also a concern of the PS. Precisely because we want to keep the capital in Belgium, we must ensure that we are not subject to investment grills of foreign groups. We want to defend as much as possible the Belgian anchorage and I think that the minister in the committee has very well explained what the plans are in this regard, also for the next political working year.

Therefore, it is very important that we follow up, including to check all commitments. Regarding the financing of the tax shift, amounts have indeed been mentioned. Thus, several hundred million would be obtained from efficiency gains at the government. Therefore, it will have to be delivered by the competent ministers.

Yes, colleagues, this tax shift is balanced and offers perspective. There is perspective for employees, for those who have a job to keep their job, and for those who have no job to get one. Sometimes this is forgotten in the discussion. One looks blind to promises, which, of course, must be hardened by the entrepreneurs in our country, by the economic realities, but one sometimes forgets that this tax shift substantially contributes to the maintenance of jobs. In addition to the number of new jobs, the number of threatened jobs should also be counted, in order to really measure the output of this tax shift.

Those who work hard are rewarded with purchasing power. This is a tax shift that offers perspective both to employers in the form of competitiveness, as well as to employees. It is a clear combination of economic growth and social progress.

That was our starting point, and it will always be. It is true that the work is not over. Fortunately, we still have a lot of time in this legislature. The fact that the work that is already underway at the banks is ⁇ encouraging.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Mrs. Minister, colleagues, as I said in the voting in the committee: finally we can vote on something that has long been questioned, something that has been discussed a lot. Finally we can vote on the tax shift.

Colleagues, I think no one in this Hemisphere has ever denied that if we want to preserve our wealth, we must increase our employment rate. Many hands do light work, workable work, as we have said many times. With too high wages, this is an almost impossible exercise. Then it becomes a vicious circle in which work and undertake little wages, a vicious circle that is impossible to break.

A recovery of competitiveness, as well as of purchasing power, was effectively an election promise made by my group. Subsequently, these measures were incorporated into the Government Agreement. Therefore, my group is pleased to support the work of this government, which has drafted this tax shift with ambition, courage and determination.

This government is working on a huge burden shift that is de facto also a burden reduction. We support that.

This is a burden shift that removes a total of 7.2 billion euros of burden from works and enterprises. The government does this in economically difficult times. That is not obvious and I think no one of the majority and opposition disregards the difficulty of this exercise. It’s a bit like doing business. The environment has brought lemons and the government, with the support of this Parliament, gives oxygen and energy to make lemonade with those lemons.

This is the path that my group wants to follow. With the tax shift we create the environment necessary to give our economy the necessary boost. We reduce the burden on companies to force jobs and job creation and attract new investments.

We also reduce the burden for people who work, so that work becomes attractive or more attractive again and the purchasing power increases. Less gross, more net.

The most important thing is to increase the cake. This means that we are primarily focused on increasing competitiveness. Finally, we have found a majority in this Parliament willing to accept that if work is too expensive, no jobs can be created.

Even though entrepreneurs are often of good will and want to make an effort, the law of reality is hard, but simple. If the wage costs cannot be repaid, a workplace must be destroyed, let alone additional jobs can be created.

We need not one, not two, but thousands of new jobs. This is what this government wants to make possible.

Therefore, we are committed to a substantial reduction in wage charges. We are not only reducing the face-to-face rate of employer contributions from 33 to 25%, but at the same time we are strengthening the existing burden reduction for the low wages, in particular the wages for which a reduction rate already applies today, so that a further burden reduction will also be achieved for the low wages, to less than half at the end of the legislature. For next year, this means a commitment of 620 million euros.

Together with the already decided measures of the Competitiveness Pact and the index jump, we will ensure that the wage burden of our companies remains within the limits. For example, our wage disability in relation to our main trading partners will reduce, and then disappear. In this way we enhance the competitiveness and investment opportunities of our companies by €2.7 billion.

We are not only committed to reducing the burden of the employer’s contributions, we are also supporting night and team work, starting with the taxpayer, and the hospitality industry with the scheme on overtime and flexi jobs. We also pay special attention to our small and medium-sized enterprises and to our self-employed, who are an important employer, not only for themselves but also for many others. The vast majority of our employees are employed in such companies. They do not pay a contribution on the first recruitment. This is an important incentive. Not only will the first recruitment scheme be improved, but the burden for the second to sixth recruitment will also be further reduced.

Colleagues, on top of that – even the opposition appreciated this measure – we strengthen the investment withdrawal, because without additional investments in the companies we stand still or we go backwards.

In the long run, employment will decline. It is crucial that a significant incentive be developed or strengthened by the government in this area. It’s not just about investment drain in general, it’s also – and the opposition welcomes it – supplemental investment in high-tech sectors. For the future, that is a very important step.

We not only improve the overall employer contribution and the investment deduction, but also work to improve the social status of self-employed people. It has never been seen before that at the same time as competitiveness enhancing measures for companies in general, aimed at job creation, we are also thinking about those who often also create a lot of jobs, our self-employed people. I said it in the committee and I repeat it: we had to wait until 2007 for the integration of the small-risk social security contribution for self-employed persons. For decades, the health care of workers was provided, but for self-employed workers it was not until 2007. It is an important signal that the government is working hand in hand with employers and workers to improve the social status of self-employed people and also to reduce their contributions.

I think we are breaking a trend. We are finally dealing with our biggest disadvantage, the excessive wage. The government can neither create jobs nor impose their creation, but it can interfere with environmental factors, enabling employers to invest in people and thus hire additional employees. It can create a favorable climate for investing, starting a business and hiring additional workforce. This is what our government is doing and what we support.

Of course, we are not blind and we also pay attention to the purchasing power of those who work. In addition, we also pay attention to the fact that those works must be rewarded. This is why we are committed to an additional tax reform for the benefit of those who work and work. Therefore, the first 30 % disc in the personal tax will be deleted.

The result cannot be questioned. Who works, who works a little more, or who commits to his career will eventually earn more. This is a reality from which one cannot escape. This will at least encourage people to get started and stay at work. The difference between working and not working is effectively worth it so that the number of shoulders that carries our prosperity will increase.

In addition to the removal of the 30% tax gap, we will also ensure that the flat-rate operating cost is further increased. From 2019, we will increase the deduction of the tax-free amount.

I have since heard in a number of opposition presentations the accusation that we have forgotten the weaker pensioners. Several colleagues have already pointed out that small increases were made for the lowest pensions. We are talking about small percentages. We have finally equalised the minimum pension of the self-employed with the minimum family pension of the employees. I think these are important measures.

I am also convinced that a package of measures alone can never solve all problems.

When I hear Mr. Laaouej speaking about the discrepancy within the pension scheme as it exists today, that is a discrepancy that is ⁇ the biggest in terms of self-employed pensions. This discrepancy has existed for decades and a number of measures are now being gradually addressed. Mr. Laaouej, this is a tax shift but not a pension shift. If you have in mind that there should be more equality in the pension scheme and if you think that there should be a shift from the highest pensions to the lowest as we know them today, then I mean that you find in us a conversation partner. You must think about it. There may also be a shift here. However, that is not the subject of this discussion.

Madame Van Cauter, this is not what I said. Since the beginning of the legislature, the government's thesis is that on pensions, the index jump is offset by the welfare envelope. There is another problem, it is the increase in electricity VAT that strikes hard on pensioners, and especially small pensioners. Indeed, the ratio between the increase of the consumption tax for their small pension is higher than in the situation of a more comfortable pension, if so, or a more comfortable work income. For small pensioners, the increase in VAT will have a very tough effect. This is not compensated by the tax reform. This is what I tell you.

Mr. Laaouej, I understand what you are saying, but you said more than that. Of course, the 21% VAT rate on electricity will have an impact. However, you are talking about a tax increase that is not actually a tax increase but a return to the original rate. This is because in practice it was established that there was abuse, so the distinction is difficult to handle. However, do you believe that if the rate of 21% is reduced to 6%, the problems for those with low pension benefits have been solved? Does this solve the problems of the small self-employed with low pensions? I am convinced that in doing so, the problems are not out of course, just as all the measures that are on the table today are not of the kind that they solve all the problems in our society. There is only one possibility and one remedy, especially getting more people to work. By creating more jobs, we can release more resources for those who deserve our concerns.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if Ms. Van Cauter read Test-Achats, but this magazine had quantified the average total amount represented by the increase in electricity VAT for Belgian households; it was 100 euros per year. When I hear adverbs such as “hard,” I think it’s worth moderating. A pensioner does not consume much electricity. I have been dealing with tax files for years, and I know well what the average consumption of one and the other is.

The difference between the rate of 6% and 21% is an increase, of course, but it does not deserve terms like "hard". I would like to give you this clarification.

Mr. Piedboeuf, through Mrs. Van Cauter, I would like to tell you that all the poverty associations agree that the increase in electricity VAT is the heaviest for those with the lowest incomes. There are various factors involved, including the fact that heating is often electric in these people. The increase in VAT is therefore heavier for people with low incomes than for others.

Ms. Van Cauter, in the previous legislature, your current president rightly defended the reduction of VAT from 21 % to 6 % here with a lot of fire, because it was assumed that it was a basic principle. Electricity, like water, is a basic need. Now you say there were abuses, take them. Your current chairman also defended that we must absolutely go to 6%, because it is a basic need. Abuses are being identified, although it is still unclear how they are connected. Stop those abuses. I think that is the logic of self. Using it as an argument is completely wrong.

You just want to solve a budget problem. Therefore, the VAT on electricity is increased. There is no other explanation for that.

Madame Van Cauter, at PTB, has gathered 250,000 signatures in a petition for the reduction of the electricity VAT rate to 6%.

We were told that this decrease would serve to prevent a rise in the pivot index for wage indexation. We see today with this government that we have both the index jump and electricity taxed at 21%.

What is the benefit of lowering the corporate tax to increase consumer taxes that hurt smaller incomes harder? Why increase VAT and excise taxes? If they have to repay the thing in the form of taxes, what is the use of reducing the tax on natural persons?

Mr. Piedboeuf, 100 euros for a small retiree is a lot of money!

As previously stated, Mr. Van Hees is an average for all households. For this reason, at least fifteen measures have been taken in favor of pensioners. But you deny these efforts. Small incomes are precisely those that are favorably targeted in our tax reform.

You completely hide the efforts that are being made towards low wages! The proof of this is that you now say that it is the middle classes that are hurt by our tax shift.

I recall a brief note from the former president of the MR, currently prime minister, who says this: “Thanks to us, we have reduced VAT on electricity and we commit to never increase it again.” You have to know what you want! There were also MR commitments on TV platforms to avoid an index jump. You made three promises, but you did not keep them.

Mr. Pietro, you are talking about the average. I can produce you electricity bills from pensioners I know, which show an increase of 10 to 15 euros per month, because Electrabel has rushed to announce to them an increase in their electricity bill. If for you, 100 euros is not much, know that, for small retirees, it is a lot of money!

After the electricity VAT, the tax shift had to be financed. There has been a lot to be done on this. Our committee chairman has not left himself untold in this debate.

Through the explanation of the government, the Court of Auditors, the Planning Office and the European Commission, he, together with us, must establish that the tax shift has been effectively financed for the first two years. What the future will bring, however, is impossible to predict. The government has defensively budgeted the revenue effects. If we can believe the Plan Bureau and the Court of Auditors, the return effects will be of such an order of magnitude that the gap of which so often has been spoken will be fully and exclusively financed by those return effects.

It will be no different with the current government than with the reality of every enterprise. Ultimately, at the end of the ride, at the end of the day and at the end of the year, when the government wants to invest in additional job creation, the logic will be the same. When we find that additional efforts need to be made, we will have to work harder. If necessary, we will have to find solutions that are portable for everyone.

Mr Van Rompuy, on that unchanged policy, which, among other things, the European Commission has pointed out, its figures are based. In addition, a number of budget items were excluded because they are difficult to predict. This is a reality that we do not want to deny.

However, claiming that the tax shift is not financed and that the path is not feasible is intellectually unfair. We will strongly oppose this claim.

Madame Van Cauter, if to say that the tax shift is not financed is intellectually incorrect, to say the opposite is equally incorrect. We’re not going to repeat all the debates, but read like me the blogs and the statements of the Chairman of the Finance Commission.

This tax shift is an interesting opportunity, but, on the one hand, it is not funded and risks driving our state into serious budgetary difficulties and, on the other hand, the way you affect the resources released is the waste of social security money.

I can’t let you say that those who say it’s not funded are intellectually dishonest. So you say that the Court of Auditors is intellectually dishonest. You say the European Commission is intellectually dishonest. You say that the State Council, which says your texts don’t keep the way, is intellectually dishonest. Is that what you say?

Colleague Gilkinet, I have said that for the early years of the tax shift the financing is guaranteed, and that the future will show whether the economy is attracted by the efforts made, whether more people are effectively engaged and whether the necessary revenue effects are there.

The estimates made by the government are more defensive than optimistic. If we can believe the Plan Bureau and the Court of Auditors, the financing also appears to be a viable map in the long term. I said that.

Mrs. Van Cauter, you have not yet answered my question of why raising indirect taxes such as VAT to reduce the tax on individuals, which, in my view, only increases inequality. Can you deny that a person who is not subject to personal tax because his or her income is insufficient will not benefit from the reduction in that tax, but will pay more tax, more VAT?

In addition, I would like to recall the remarks made by our Prime Minister, Charles Michel, regarding VAT on electricity. I have a picture of him who will also be interested. and Piedboeuf. I am quoting mr. Michel: “Electricity VAT is falling from 21% to 6%, a promise fulfilled.” and he added: “By the strength of tenacity, we have been able to convince that it is essential to increase citizens’ purchasing power, at a time when energy spending is a heavy financial burden on families’ budgets.”

It is not necessary to go back to the same debate forever.

Colleagues, with regard to the financing of the tax shift, I am absolutely not ashamed that the government has chosen to increase the excise duty on tobacco and alcohol; that is a choice for taxing negative externalities, as it is called. This will result in savings in healthcare and the surplus income from excise duties will contribute to the financing of the tax shift.

It is unclear why people are choosing a reduction in personal tax. However, this is quite clear. Our government wants to motivate people to get to work, to work and thus contribute. More shoulders can make sure that, more than today, we can take care of those who are unhappy, but in good faith. Today, we can make too little effort for those people. My group also thinks so. That is why this choice was made. The goal is to get more people to work. We want to give more people the courage to go to work or to contribute, so that more comes into the state treasury, so that we can take care of those who need our care. That is the reason.

I would just like to tell Mrs. Van Cauter that in my area, on the side of La Louvière, there is a job available for 40 job seekers. I don’t know how you’re going to encourage them to find a job. There is no employment anyway. This is the real problem.

Maybe we shouldn’t let those people go? You can also not deny that there are a lot of difficult professions for which they are looking for workforce. Per ⁇ we should redirect those people to such a job? Per ⁇ we should provide for re-training routes? Per ⁇ we should make sure that we do not abandon these people?

Work is absolutely not a punishment! Working is a privilege. Work creates social contacts. Working gives you a available income that allows you to exist in a dignified way. That is what we stand behind.

Not everything can be solved by these measures alone. I think there needs to be cooperation with the different regions to ensure that people who need a job can also find a job. Companies that are hopelessly looking for workforce and do not find it must be able to find that workforce so that the business can run and create added value. That is our mission. This is just a puzzle piece of a very large puzzle that must be put together by many actors.

Regarding the financing of the tax shift, I would like to briefly reflect on two measures.

First, the transit tax. It seems to me logical that no one leaves the dance. It also makes sense for everyone to contribute. By introducing a cross-sighted tax, one can put a stake and punch on disloyal fiscal competition or on escaping a contribution obligation. We would like to support this measure, Mr. Minister.

As for the speculation tax, I said in the committee that we are a cool lover of this. I can only repeat that. It is not that we believe that speculation must be profitable. Our only concern that has led to our hesitant approval of this measure is that we should absolutely not be in the way of financing our companies. Sustainable financing is of utmost importance. How many start-ups have we already seen go overseas, precisely because in some regions and countries financing can be made easier.

That is why we hesitated. Not because we necessarily wanted to work speculation in hand, or because we did not want to subject them to taxation, but because we did not want to hinder the sustainable financing of our companies. We can only hope that the introduction of this speculative tax will contribute to stabilizing the price fluctuations, which can be a reason for individuals to dare invest little in companies via the stock exchange. A stable price-to-profit ratio can encourage individuals to invest more in our companies.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am closing my speech. A lot of work has been done. It is now important that we hold the finger at the wrist and continue to monitor. This was clearly stated by Mr. Van Mechelen during the budget discussion. It is important that we do not rest on our laurels but continue to work. This will require efforts from our employees and our companies, but also from ourselves. There is still a lot of legislative work ahead of us, but think about the e-commerce sector, which has already been discussed. We export a lot of purchasing power in this sector, and as a result, jobs are lost here. Also consider the flexi jobs. We need to evaluate this. Per ⁇ the tax receipts will be even greater than if we had not introduced these measures.

Per ⁇ we should consider, colleagues, whether we can extend these measures to other sectors. This is a legitimate question on the ground, which we absolutely need to pay attention to.

Colleagues, we are, in any case, convinced that if the citizens, the companies and the legislature join the government, our economy will progress, and thus also our citizens.

I suggest that we suspend our work now.

We will resume at 14:15. Some speakers are still registered. Then we will get the response from the government. Voting is scheduled to take place around 17:00.