Proposition 54K3382

Projet de loi modifiant certaines dispositions relatives à l'allocation de mobilité.

General information ¶

Submitted by

MR Swedish coalition

Submission date

Dec. 3, 2018

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

sustainable mobility tax law transport and mobility tax-free allowance

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V Open Vld N-VA MR

Voted to reject

Groen Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI PVDA | PTB

Abstained from voting

∉ PP VB

Party dissidents ¶

• Olivier Maingain (MR) voted to reject.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Feb. 21, 2019 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

The rapporteurs Luk Van Biesen, Peter Dedecker, Benoît Piedboeuf, Georges Gilkinet and Stefaan Vercamer refer to the written reports.

We discuss here two packages of legislative texts, which are very widely carried out in the Chamber. This also seems to me very logical, because they increase the freedom of choice. The trade unions once came out on the streets to protest, rightly, against the fact that workers were paid out in receipts that they were then allowed to spend in the boss’s store. They have always been very strongly opposed to resistance and a heavy social struggle.

Unfortunately, we are now threatening to end with a new system with less freedom of choice, with the thundering burdens on labour, which have come under their rule. More and more people of our generation who climb a little higher in the hierarchy receive a portion of their salary in the form of a business car. If they get some storage later, they get it mostly through a larger new car, even though they don’t really need it. This limits their freedom of choice. I do not need to describe the ecological disaster associated with it. The proposed designs are a step in the right direction, as they increase the freedom of choice in that area.

Do I expect a great success here? Actually not. Some scepticism is useful when you look at the mobility budget. After all, if one chooses to exchange the car for a public transport subscription, then the balance that one receives cash is still taxed at 38,07%. That is still too much. The great advantage of a business car lies precisely in the fact that one also takes all of his private movements with it. The system is not competitive.

Anyway, here is a step in the right direction, but further steps will be needed. I have two important ones. The first is a further reduction of the burden on labor so that workers enjoy greater freedom in choosing what they want to do with their wages. This is also really necessary, so that the offer of the wage car no longer remains necessary, let alone attractive.

Secondly, we must demolish the typical Belgian tax coterry of labor charges with all kinds of possible escape routes, where we are now building one more, and replace it with a beautiful, simple new construction that is clean and efficient. It should then become a kind of choice package for both the employer and the employee, a little like the cafetaria plan, which some employers offer today. It should become a fiscal cafetaria plan with opportunities for more ecologically efficient extralegal benefits and benefits to better combine work and family.

That will take us much further than wage cars.

We are delighted to see this project finally come to the table of our institution. This is a major milestone in smooth mobility, which encourages the transition of the public vehicle to alternative and sustainable modes of transport. This can only improve mobility, which is known to concern many workers, especially those who come to work in the capital.

I am not going to describe the system. It is based on three pillars. The first is the always possible use of the company car, of course environmentally friendly. The second pillar brings together a series of alternative and sustainable modes of transport and the third is the use of balance. The latter is less encouraged than the second. I will come back.

With this operation, the worker is completely free to choose his mode of movement. He can travel in a company car, but he can also take his car to get to the station, take the train and, descending from the train, take a shared bike or a trolley, since we see this means of transport appear at the moment.

Our Group especially welcomes the multitude of alternative and sustainable modes of transport included in the Second Pillar. This pillar is encouraged. In fact, it is subject to a tax deduction, while the third pillar is liable for a special social security contribution of 38.7%.

For our group, the key point is of course the freedom of choice. This initiative complements the mobility allocation by expanding the possibilities. This budget encourages the greening of the Belgian automobile fleet and this was anticipated with impatience by both parliamentarians and workers. Our group considers this to be a good project. We will support it with enthusiasm.

Mr. Speaker, we support the draft mobility budget, but we do not support the project or the proposal regarding the mobility allocation. This is not a surprise.

When it comes to the mobility project, in fact, what lost time! We had told you from the beginning that the famous “cash for car” system was a banking system, which didn’t work. Social partners did not want it. We had told you. You didn’t listen to me at the time.

The fact is that, and it should be rejoicing, you finally considered that the social partners should be listened to. You have then chosen the model they proposed to you. Therefore, the mobility budget is going in the right direction. We will support this text. In fact, it offers a greater choice of alternative mobility options. It encourages choices that will improve mobility. This is therefore an additional step in the right direction, ⁇ in the context we know of a shared, widespread awareness of environmental and climate issues.

We did not wait for the government. We had submitted a bill with a mobility budget. We made emulsions. It must be rejoiced.

There are three amendments. The first amendment aims to set a limit, to avoid abuses and to take into account expenses that might appear to be occasional. We propose to set a ceiling of EUR 35 000, which we consider to be on average, allowing a wide range of alternatives, in particular for the replacement of vehicles with less polluting vehicles. It would have been reasonable to take this amendment into account in our committee work. This was not the case. The amendment is submitted to the plenary.

The second amendment obliges the employer who offers commercial cars to, at the same time, offer a mobility budget; while your text offers a choice. We want an automation. As soon as there are commercial cars, there is necessarily the legal obligation to propose a mobility budget. You did not follow us. We also submit an amendment.

Finally, the third amendment obliges the owner of several corporate cars – this exists, there are people who have several corporate cars – to hand them over before they can benefit from a mobility budget. The objective of the mobility budget is to promote other mobility. Therefore, it makes no sense to agree to a budget for another mobility by keeping a company car. We shouldn’t find ourselves in a situation where people would take a mobility budget while at the same time keeping a company car. It makes no sense.

We know that you will reject these amendments, you, the former majority, if I can say, but of which we see that it persists. Nevertheless, we will support the project that is submitted to us today, because it is well designed, that it has been developed in consultation with the social partners and that it will effectively encourage workers to resort to alternative, less polluting means of transport.

It was on the general and fiscal sides. There is also a social aspect in which we identified two problems that could have been solved. The first is a bit technical, but we can synthesize it. At some point, part of the mobility budget may not be used. In this case, what is done? How is this amount received by the worker, but not used for an alternative mobility, treated?

You opt for the solution of applying a special contribution of 38,07%, which is supposed to cover an average rate of professional prepayment to which a personal social contribution is added. Nevertheless, you exclude, while applying it, that it can finance the worker’s vacation fee. And that’s where it’s not right! Either it is considered that the relic is a full-time salary and it must then contribute to the financing of all the components of social security and open up full social rights of social security, or you open up a hybrid and completely new right that does not correspond to anything known, in a word, a completely bancal right.

Nothing justifies this treatment more than strange that you don’t seem ready to want to settle! We therefore submit an amendment so that this is settled and so that the unused budget residual is considered a full-time salary and, therefore, open full-time social rights. This concludes my speech on the mobility budget. I move to the mobility allocation which, according to the timetable of the work, will intervene before in terms of voting.

When it comes to mobility allocation, we are more than critical. The system did not work. It did not work in terms of success: a handful of people had resorted to this system.

At the same time, the State Council identified several issues of discrimination. This is how one would find in the same company people who would be entitled to a mobility allowance, while others would not. Instead of removing this measure to focus on the mobility budget, you have preferred to maintain the mobility allocation.

Let things be clear! Several goals are fed by a certain ideology in order to transform taxed or para-fiscalized wages, which finance social security as well as public services – of which people generally benefit – and opens social rights, into de-fiscalized and de-para-fiscalized remuneration. We know that this is the great goal of some: to be able to give workers amounts that are outside of the wage. I invite those and those who consider it a good idea to think well, because it is a sliding slope on which some are trying to take us.

Furthermore, it is necessary to imagine the incongruity of what is put in place. In fact, the mobility allowance will not only be granted to people who have a public car, but to others who fall into a category that might be entitled to it. This is completely aberrant.

That is why we will not support this text. We sincerely believe that we should have focused on the mobility budget.

Mr. Speaker, you will not be surprised that I am ⁇ pleased today with the final vote on the current bill on the mobility budget. The draft was eventually submitted to Parliament by the ministers De Block, De Croo and Peeters, for which I thank you. However, it is appropriate to mention also the merits of the former Minister of Finance, Johan Van Overtveldt, as he prepared the bill with it.

Let me start with an open door: from a mobility perspective, it is clear that the current system of commercial cars, especially when it comes to pure wage cars, does not fit in the pursuit of more sustainable mobility. The simplest answer is to stop there, but it is not so simple, of course, at least if one does not want to reduce the salary of the employees concerned. The status of the commercial car is, in fact, part of a broader debate on wage costs, as colleague Dedecker has already cited. The commercial car is one of the elements in the remuneration of a significant part of the employees, mainly servants. Touching the status of the commercial cars means making adjustments to social security, tax, corporate economic and labour law agreements. This is precisely why we need a strong, realistic, but also attractive alternative to the commercial car that can exist in addition to the current system.

The current mobility budget is also a positive alternative, which does not derive from the assumption that one means of transport is corrupt and that everyone should only use another means of transport. It is driven by a flexible concept in which the employee is no longer attached to the commercial car as part of his salary, but in which his mobility can also be filled in another way. With the mobility budget, the employee will now be able to make a conscious choice and that is important: that a relocation is no longer an automation, but something for which a conscious choice must be made. That was the starting point from the beginning when we began to think about this topic.

The first conversations I had about this with employees date back about twelve years ago. From the conclusion that commercial cars play an important role in our mobility problem, but also from the conclusion that these cars are part of the wage package, we started a search for alternatives.

The mobility budget at first remained a vague idea, without immediately having a concrete fulfillment in mind. In preparing them, we often encountered the complexity of regulations, ⁇ in the context of mobility. By looking at a mobility glasses, it wasn’t always as easy to unravel the impenetrable fiscal and parafiscal nodes throughout the system.

By 2009, we were slowly developing a concept. However, when I presented that concept at a group meeting at the time, the idea was already referred to the garbage box after a few minutes by a – with all respect – experienced rot within our party. Between hooks, which experienced rot was not Mr. Van Rompuy for all clarity. The person in question said, and I quote, "You don't want to give the impression that you are going to prut the commercial cars a few months before the Flemish elections?"As if I had become completely crazy, that impression was then given to me.

Then we took some time for it. We changed the gun from shoulder to shoulder and brought the idea of the mobility budget through a broader vision note. In the years that followed, several important initiatives were taken that led to this bill being discussed today.

I refer, for example, to the pilot project that was implemented in 2012 by the Flemish government, under the impetus of the then Minister of Mobility Crevits. In several companies in Flemish-Brabant, a mobility budget was then tested. It showed that both employers and workers were willing to challenge their mobility, provided that it was practical, easy to organize and interesting for all parties.

The employee’s use of cars in the participating companies dropped rapidly to 37%, which is a rather dramatic drop. I must say that these were companies in very file-sensitive areas.

Supported by those results and fed by that additional know-how, my then colleague from the Flemish Parliament Griet Smaers and I from our federal group presented our first bill on the mobility budget to interested parties and experts on a study day on 5 November 2013. This eventually led to the proposal as we submitted it in the House, which put the mobility budget on the political agenda both literally and figuratively.

So it has taken a long time. It has demanded a lot of time. Meanwhile, the mobility budget has long been no longer such an innovative concept. In social consultation, and ⁇ in mobility circles, on mobility forums, it has now become an embedded concept.

Under the file problem, many employers and employees have become creative in recent years to complement their mobility in other ways. More and more companies have already developed a kind of mobility budget for their employees in recent years. I think of applications such as Railease and bicycle leasing, the multimodal payment card XXImo, commercial cars with a plug-in truck in the suitcase, Mobility as a Service. These have long been no longer empty concepts. They have gradually become negotiating instruments in the war on talent, ⁇ for the younger generation, ⁇ for companies in the most file-sensitive areas, especially for workers living in an urban environment where there is hardly yet to find a parking space or where one has to pay 150 euros per month to park that piece of wage somewhere or put it in a garage.

Nevertheless, until today there was no clear legal, fiscal and parafiscal framework. It requires a lot of creativity in the grey zones of existing regulations to develop a form of mobility budget per company.

This is something that was especially benefited by really large companies, such as Proximus, which has achieved very good results with the introduction of the mobility budget, as well as many other companies that have gone to experiment with it.

The general principles of the draft law on which we may vote later have remained clear and unchanged throughout those twelve years. Budget neutrality is the starting point. Both for the government, the employer and the employee, that has always been the starting point, no additional financial burdens for the employer, no financial disadvantage for the employee and as much as possible budget neutral for the government.

The employer decides whether or not to offer the mobility budget within the company and the system must remain operational for everyone. The employee who is entitled to it will be given the choice of whether or not to intervene. If he does so, he will be given more flexibility to assemble his mobility à la carte, depending on his own needs.

A combination of bicycle, train, bus, subsystems, and so on is perfectly possible. Multimodality at the top, depending on the needs and expectations at a given time. Anyone who needs a business car within that package can continue to do so.

In addition, in this bill there is also attention to the greening of the car park. If one wants to keep a car within the budget, it can, provided that the car meets certain environmental requirements.

Closeness was also included in the bill. Those who are going to live close to work can contribute a part of their housing costs to the mobility budget, where close then means that it is a five-kilometre cycling distance achievable for everyone.

The remaining amount is paid once a year as a salary to the employee and the social contribution paid on it ensures that social rights are built.

Colleagues, it may sound somewhat complex, unusual and complicated. Will this work? I am quite optimistic about this. There will be a transition period. Current lease contracts will not simply be terminated, but both the business world and the mobility sector are ready to quickly put this bill into practice.

Numerous start-ups are launching innovative ideas that will make our mobility smarter, better and cleaner. One can find and unlock a partial step through apps. Train tickets can be paid via your phone. One can reserve a part bike at the station for those last kilometers. If there is an accident on the road, the app calculates an alternative route in real time. Several companies at home and abroad are developing within the new sector of Mobility as a Service. Mobility becomes a service and no longer a car at your doorstep. Through a subscription, one can begin to assemble, organize and pay for his mobility à la carte. MaaS apps are the Netflix of mobility, allowing people to choose the most suitable means of transport at any time.

This bill will give a huge boost to this new mobility sector. We already hear that MaaS players from all over Europe are looking with great interest at the impact that the introduction of the mobility budget will have on the application of such multimodal mobility solutions. It is, of course, important that we, as a government, properly follow up, evaluate and possibly guide this.

For the effective implementation on the largest possible scale, it is of course very important that the mobility budget can be managed in a simple way. This will happen with these apps. The KB, which should put its simple application into practice, is already ready. It is up to the State Council that will issue its opinion as soon as the legal framework is established, so the draft law presented here is approved by the House.

The practical modalities with which companies will have to start work will be made known on a convenient website, we are promised. When all that is done, I really think that the government, together with innovative players, will provide a flexible and sustainable alternative to the commercial car. This will break the still too common automation in our mobility and we are taking a great step towards a multimodal, more sustainable and healthier mobility in our country.

I do not want to finish without thanking a number of people who have contributed to the establishment of the legal arrangement over the past years. It is always dangerous to name names. I already mentioned Ms. Smaers, but I would ⁇ also mention specialists Veerle and Koen, Kathelijne and Kenneth for their pioneering work. Thank you also to Kris Peeters who in the government at critical times had to seriously hit the table to continue with this design.

I also thank the group staff and colleague Egbert Lachaert for the many constructive conversations that we have had on the subject and for bringing to the car and everyone who has further collaborated on the design and who will soon press on the green cup.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, our group is ⁇ pleased to be here today with these two texts. One is about the mobility allowance and the other is about the mobility budget.

Mr. Van den Bergh and other colleagues have already well outlined the history of the creation of these texts.

It is Mr Van den Bergh who came up with a text on the mobility budget for the first time in the previous legislature. At the beginning of this legislature, the preparation of a mobility budget has also been included in the federal government agreement.

Then it became silent for a while in this file and that had to do with the fear that existed in many colleagues to start murmuring on the system of commercial cars. Mr Van den Bergh just said that he should also conduct the discussion in his own group on the net before the elections to start a debate on commercial cars. I have had this debate in my group as well. It is not obvious. We all know that we would not reinvent the system of commercial cars today. This was once caused by the high labor burden in our country, which is there.

Today we are in a situation where hundreds of thousands of workers in our country get that as part of their salary package. If one starts attacking it today or wants to take it away, as some parties say quite easily, then one must know very well what one is doing. Then one really breaks into the wages of the people and makes sure that they retain less net wages from one month to another. This is not only harmful to the income of those workers, but also of the whole family, who rely on that car. That is also bad for, for example, single mothers who have negotiated with their employer about that car, which they need to bring the children to the sports association or to school. That simply decreasing from day to day, as some advocate, is not desirable, not realistic, and not fair. Breach of existing employment contracts or agreements.

If we do something about this, it is to offer people a positive, alternative choice. This is how we have always looked at this dossier, together with the colleagues who have worked on it.

The bad thing about the story of the commercial cars was that there was no alternative that was equally interesting parafiscal and fiscal. One had to be almost crazy not to accept a car that the employer offers because there could not be offered an alternative where one receives the same amount of net benefit.

With the introduction of the mobility fee, the so-called cash for car, and now with the mobility budget, we offer two beautiful alternatives for everyone.

The mobility compensation came first, but whoever wants to speak immediately about its failure, I want to correct. There was a reasoning behind why the door was not immediately opened for the mass use of the mobility fee.

Indeed, when introducing that design, there was the risk that if one could replace a car with net cash, employers would reduce the gross wage when recruiting and would give net money instead of a car, which would then be negative for the state income and the RSZ income.

A major pillar in the file has always been our concern to ensure budget-neutral measures, not only for employers and employees, but also for the government. If we had opened the door to cash for car too widely from the beginning, then there was the risk that employers and employees would have made wage optimization. We started with caution in the case. Today, with the present design, we will relieve the system somewhat, because we find that it is being used too little.

Until now, one had to have driven the car for twelve months before one could convert it. That was an anti-fraud measure, a measure against the optimization technique. Now it is enough that one enters into an employee or function category where one has the right to a car. Therefore, one no longer needs to drive a car for 12 months before it can be converted into a mobility allowance; the right to cash for car comes into effect immediately.

In itself, it is an interesting system for those who decide to live close to work. The Bond Better Living Environment demonstrated during the Parliament hearings that the system is indeed interesting for those who are going to live closer to their work, because one can exchange the car for additional net income. This is positive because the ecological footprint of a non-migration is still much smaller than that of a move by train. Therefore, we ⁇ want to encourage closer living to work.

The mobility budget, which the employee receives above that, in my opinion, will not lose its effect, ⁇ given the preparations of many companies. If large companies with thousands of employees introduce a mobility budget system, then of course it has a very large multiplier effect. Thousands of employees can immediately enter that system. Due to the tightness of the labour market, many large companies involved in a war for talent make work of their own mobility policy, because workers do not like to be in the file with their business car.

Deloitte, which was based in Diegem, has now moved with all its employees to the Zaventem tarmac, close to a train station, has introduced a mobility budget and can now, with the proposed legislation, make it more fiscal attractive for its employees.

A lot of entrepreneurs are doing this. The mobility budget tool, which we give them with the proposed texts, will have a reinforcing effect and I expect a lot of it, like Mr Van den Bergh.

Many have often wanted the public to make a contrast between those who advocate a mobility fee and those who advocate a mobility budget. I can tell you that our group and ⁇ myself have always pledged for both, even at the government level. I see perfectly the complementarity of both systems. For a small SME, who oppose managing all that, cash for car may be more interesting. For a larger company that wants to organize everything on its own, the mobility budget will undoubtedly be the most interesting tool.

The pillars have been announced. Take a look at our proposals that we made two or three years ago and with which we resumed the debate on the mobility budget. Our proposals are supported by a number of pillars.

One pillar is the cash-for-car system. The second pillar is the mobility budget. Both systems are currently in place.

The third pillar is the greening of commercial cars, which was also in the advice of the social partners. I am very pleased that we were able to explain this proposal yesterday in the Social Affairs Committee. Who knows, we can work on this in the coming weeks. I hope that the members who are lucky enough to sit here again will be able to work with us on the implementation of the third pillar of the new government agreement in the upcoming legislature.

A fourth pillar in our proposals is sometimes somewhat forgotten, although it is an important point. In the long term, we should indeed come to a system in which all customs have been abolished. In terms of the commercial car and the mobility budget, this can, in my opinion, only be achieved if a mobility budget for everyone grows.

If we do not want to move on to the redistribution of who today has a car and who today does not have that car, it is that the social partners in the wage agreements they conclude gradually increase to a mobility budget for all.

In many parity committees, CCOs have agreed on the residence-work transfer. They should form the basis for growing a mobility budget for all.

In addition, if one can raise the mobility budget for everyone to the value of a mid-range car, then one can compensate for this by a reduction in wage burden and that will not result in one employee winning and the other losing, but that constitutes an additional benefit for all.

That is the only way to get off the wage car in the long term in a fair way and without people losing their wages, even if it will take many years. The only alternative is to expropriate workers, reduce some and thus make them lose their wages, but we do not choose that. We choose the positive path, which consists in providing additional freedom of choice to each employee to, together with his employer, exchange the car for salary or for a mobility budget. That is the right way.

We will later approve the two designs with a lot of pleasure.

Mr. Speaker, over the past years, in the debate, we have repeatedly laid out the link between the number of wage cars and the trails, the mobility aspect, on the one hand, and the climate, the climateological aspect, on the other hand, a topic that is more current today than ever, to prove the demonstrations of young people on the streets of Brussels every Thursday. In addition, we also constantly pointed out the impact of the wage car on government taxation due to its tax deductibility, amounting to 4.5 billion euros per year.

Last year alone we stood 925 000 hours on the Flemish roads. In 2017, that was 913 000 hours. The economic cost of that halt is estimated at 2 % of gross domestic product.

Then there is the system of commercial cars – we actually speak better about wage cars – where we note a huge increase in the number of newly registered commercial cars every year. If one puts all this side by side, it is more than right that there is a vote here today on a knock in that policy. The mobility budget is an important step forward to look wider than just wage cars.

Among young workers, people between 20 and 29 years of age, one sees, on the one hand, the tendency to get closer to work, but on the other hand, they are the net who in the debate on wages push forward business car / wage car as a wage condition. That is paradoxical.

In the future, the system of wage cars should actually be abolished. There must be a reduction in the number of tax charges. It is important that this is done without any wage loss. I understand that this cannot be done from one day to the next. Such a system cannot be introduced just before the elections. Such a system should be implemented in several steps. However, the conversion should take place.

Then I come to the aspect of the mobility allowance, the cash for cars. We said during the discussion that we think it would be a less successful system. Today, approximately 320 people have entered that system. For us, it was more logical to vote today on its abolition. Some talk about freedom of choice, but I think it will become too difficult for some companies.

Regarding the mobility budget itself, I have a few comments, which I regret have not been included.

This is the extraction mechanism. This was highlighted during the explanations of, among other things, the Bond Beter Leefmilieu. Should there be a time frame for the extinction of this system?

It would have been good to provide in this text an evaluation of the current legislation. This could be considered effectively in the next legislature.

I come to another aspect. If we need to come to a modal shift, then we need to provide a mobility budget for all employees, not just for those who currently have a business car. This, of course, implies a shift from tax deductibility to, for example, more investment in public transport.

We will vote in favour of the mobility budget, but we think that the mobility fee would have been better abolished. Therefore, we will vote against.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Mr. Colleagues, this debate on corporate cars is essential for several reasons:

It is essential in the pursuit of more tax justice. In fact, it is now seen that the owners of the largest corporate cars also have the highest wages.

- it is also essential in the context of state financing and social security, since corporate cars have an enormous cost in terms of public subsidies - deductibility to corporate tax, non-taxation of wages, non-payment of social contributions on the advantage represented by the corporate car;

- it is essential in the context of the search for a more fluid mobility. Our country is one of the most bottled in Europe. Belgians spend thousands of hours in traffic jams, which has economic consequences that amount to billions of euros each year, according to for example the FEB assessments.

There is also the context of the fight against cardiovascular diseases caused by fine particles from diesel, especially in our cities.

I will finally discuss the context of the struggle for the preservation of the planet, to prevent its warming from going beyond 1.5 °C by the CO2 emissions that are also those of cars that use fossil fuels.

Let us be positive! Today, with the discussion about this mobility budget, the taboo of corporate cars is finally broken. But we are only at the beginning of a path that will have to be continued in the course of the next legislation and ⁇ the following, on the basis, Mr. Minister, of a serious and regular assessment of the effects of the legislation that we are going to vote today.

First of all, the goal is to drastically reduce the number of cars in circulation in our country and elsewhere and therefore also drastically reduce the number of corporate cars in circulation, leaving them only to workers who need them to complete their professional mission and fulfill their employment contract.

Another goal is to offer diverse and complementary, less polluting alternatives to these commercial cars:

- more comfortable, more regular public transportation with greater amplitude;

and shared cars;

mobility plans at the level of enterprises;

- the use of the electric bike or not and any other means of mobility;

- the creation of mobility cards that are already made available to workers.

Mr. Van den Bergh, Mr. Lachaert, you said, there is a potential for the development of a new mobility economy that can create jobs, make us both more mobile and have less impact on our environment.

These are quite exciting prospects.

The third objective is an even more fundamental revision of the company car system than it is today. This is a goal of reducing labour costs, while preserving workers’ rights and the financing of social security, through mechanisms alternative to those currently based solely on labour contributions.

That is the objective. In fact, today, a first step will be taken, after a failed start. The project "Cash for car" was, and is still, poorly designed, because it does not respect the social consultation. It is inefficient and it is a failure: today, only a few hundred workers have abandoned their company car for cash. It is also dangerous for future financing of social security. It would simply deserve to be ranked in forgetting instead of being artificially prolonged, or even made more dangerous by the changes you propose.

We believe that this is a true Trojan horse of the definition of social security. It creates routes of taxation that absolutely do not meet the goal of better mobility or less impact on the environment. There is no sense in letting it coexist with the other text, which is the mobility budget. Mr. Minister, we have pledged in commission for the abandonment of the "Cash for car", to close this parenthesis.

At the time of the analysis of the text in its first version, we had requested the hearing of the social partners. They had explained to us that they had a better alternative than the “Cash for car”, which was developed within the National Labour Council. It is now back on the table; this is the mobility budget.

Why not have the simplicity and common sense to abandon the “Cash for car” and focus on the mobility budget that, we said, is a much better text? In the analysis of the text on the "Cash for car", we had also submitted the CNT text in the form of an amendment.

This is a much more compelling essay, not only because it comes from social consultation, but also because it actually envisages a form of multimobility, with the possibility for workers of an alternative to their company car, the possibility of keeping a company car, but with less impact on the environment. This also creates development opportunities for mobility economic sectors.

Is the text perfect? We do not think so. It retains some weaknesses compared to which we introduced amendments. First, it is not ambitious enough about the impact on CO2 and fine particulate emissions of cars that will remain in circulation tomorrow. This impact should have been gradually reduced. The exceptions proposed in the text to the possibility of purchasing final-series cars show that the primary objective is neither environmental nor public health.

Furthermore, the text is also not ambitious in relation to this new possibility, which is left to transform this mobility allowance into a housing allowance that you can benefit from if you live less than five kilometers from your workplace. It seemed to us that ten kilometers were a much more interesting distance. This is obviously an element that can evolve over time, depending on the evaluation that will be made of the text.

In addition, the text is also problematic in our view with regard to the tax treatment of the third pillar, i.e. the amount of money that remains to workers after taking into account the car they keep and the expenses they make in matters of mobility. For us, this third pillar should be seen simply as a salary that generates payment of social contributions, taxes and duties, all within the framework of a comprehensive reflection on the cost of labor.

Furthermore, the text does not contain sufficient anti-abuse measures. Nowadays, some workers benefit from two company cars. Personally, I tried but I never managed to drive two cars at the same time. In the future, these workers will be able to benefit from both the mobility budget and a company car under another employment contract. This is hardly understandable. It would have been interesting to use this text to remove this anomaly.

Finally, this text is totally insufficient in that it does not allow the federal state to evaluate by monitoring this system of corporate cars that costs each year billions of euros to the public finances and which has the impacts I described.

Today, no minister can tell us, even the Minister of Finance, how many corporate cars are in circulation, what is their type of motorization, what is their impact on CO2, what is their exact cost for public finances. To assess this impact, we need to rely on studies conducted by private offices. We proposed, through an amendment, that this monitoring be now ensured and that the SPF Finances publishes every year a location report that would allow us, as legislators, to make the most sensible choices regarding the budgetary, fiscal and environmental impact of these commercial cars.

We submitted these amendments to correct the shortcomings of the text. We submit them to your vote in this plenary session. If it is not today that we can convince you, it will be tomorrow that we must act. You can count on our determination to continue to make this issue evolve.

It seems to us that the ideal system would be to offer every worker, regardless of their status or business, the benefit of a tax-free mobility allowance to use various non-polluting collective mobility services, including with the help of entirely innovative companies. The company car would be offered only to workers who need it as part of the exercise of their professional mission. This system would be both fairer, more efficient in terms of mobility, greener and more up to the environmental issues that we must take hands-on. We will surely come back with this matter in the coming months.

I would like to comment on the two texts submitted to our vote. They pursue the same goal but with very different degrees of success. Their concomitance allows for some to see the beautiful complementarity between the two formulas and for others, of which I am, to see a form of inconsistency. There is a two-time engine that produces a few failures.

Among these failures is the text on the mobility allocation. From the beginning, he appears to be foolish. All the concerns about this formula have been confirmed. This cash for car formula was praised at the time by Minister Didier Reynders but, from the beginning, objections were issued by the social partners, by the State Council, by the opposition within the committees that examined the text. All this did not convince the government to change its strategy. However, on arrival, it is seen that the flop is confirmed: 372 cases have been identified. We are far from the objectives announced, which were already extremely modest.

On the other hand, the mobility budget can be welcomed more favorably. The CDH group will vote on it, as opposed to the mobility allowance. This text provides a wider incentive to make sustainable mobility choices, far more than the mobility allocation. The CDH group had submitted a proposal that was inspired by this philosophy. It focused on a budget of quality of life, both mobility is linked with the organization of daily life. The philosophy was the same as it was about opening the tax advantage associated with corporate cars to a much wider range of possibilities.

Finally, as Mr. Piedboeuf said just at the beginning of his intervention, one can ask why we have dragged so much and why we have wasted time trying to maintain, against winds and tide, the intermediate measure. This question can still be asked today. The mobility allowance was a bad compromise. Today, it needs to be corrected by a substantial bill. Why have you imagined this formula when, from the beginning, the social partners had announced their willingness to implement a real mobility budget and work on a text worthy of that name?

The bill on the mobility budget goes in the right direction as it offers a system that respects the diversity of individual choices, a system based on three pillars: the more environmentally friendly car, the expenditure for alternative modes of transport or the balance of the budget in cash.

It goes in the right direction, but it ⁇ does not close or exhaust the debate on mobility, pollution, health or on the type of beneficiary. Indeed, the mobility budget with total maintenance of the benefit for utility cars is unlikely to change the number of utility cars and will have a positive impact on mobility, congestion and the environment only to the extent that Pillar 1 will leave margin, that employees will decide to allocate this margin to Pillar 2 rather than Pillar 3. It should therefore be hoped that the persons concerned opt for the combination of the car with other means of transport. However, we can objectively fear that this phenomenon is marginal.

We have not received a government impact assessment to support the mobility target and there may be concerns that the number of commercial cars will continue to increase, as is currently the case. In 2017, 292,734 new corporate cars were registered. This is an increase of more than 3.2% compared to the previous year. There is therefore a form of derivative that must be corrected at all costs and the text submitted to our vote may contribute to it, but ⁇ not in a structural and sufficiently significant way.

Furthermore, the discussions in committees showed a number of difficulties, in our view insufficiently resolved, relating to abuses, readability, budgetary impact.

I would like to emphasize that the Belgian Federation of Enterprises recommends that the existing systems be merged toward a simpler and more transparent single system. Therefore, it will be necessary to return the work to the profession. I hope that, at the time, this review can be based on an evaluation of the measures implemented. At least that is what we ask for. We demand a rigorous assessment of the two measures applied in order to be able to verify their effectiveness and make better-informed corrections.

In conclusion, the mobility budget is a first step in the right direction, that of the diversification of the tax advantage relating to commercial cars. That is why we will support this text. But I would like to remind you that our vote will be negative for the text on the mobility allowance.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen, the bill amending the mobility allowance is now subject to vote in Parliament. It amends certain provisions relating to the mobility allowance which, as we recall, introduces the possibility for workers who have a company car to refund it against a mobility allowance. The status of this sum of money will be as advantageous as that of the company car.

However, it should be recalled that the extra-salary benefits granted by the Belgian State to public vehicles are detrimental to the environment but also to the health of citizens. Indeed, the impact of infrastructure on natural environments, the aggravation of global warming, as well as local air pollution, generate major health disturbances for the entire population.

The combined increase in the number of vehicles in circulation and the number of kilometers travelled inevitably results in an increase in fuel consumption and in the end an increase in CO2 and fine particulate emissions that are ⁇ harmful to health.

According to information from the Federal Plan Office, the provision of a corporate car involves almost exclusive use of the car as a means of transport for the journey between home and workplace, as well as a more frequent use of the car for private travel.

According to estimates, a company car owner would travel ⁇ 6,000 kilometers longer than another person who does not have a company vehicle. This increase in the number of kilometers travelled thus actively contributes to the constant increase in urban traffic congestion, but also to the increase in air pollution.

The advantageous tax regime for commercial cars also constitutes a tax niche that our group believes should be reformed and, in the long run, eliminated. In fact, according to an OECD study of September 2014 covering twenty-seven countries, Belgium holds the absolute record of the average annual subsidies allocated to commercial cars. These subsidies amount to approximately 2,800 euros. There have been few significant legislative changes since then. I am concerned that this amount is substantially the same today.

However, these considerations are not new. Already in 2009, the Supreme Council of Finance reasoned in these terms: "We must progressively move towards the abolition of corporate cars, and align the taxation of benefits of all kinds with that of wages, both in the head of the employer and in the head of the employee." More than ten years after these recommendations, my group notes with regret that this extra-wage benefit has still not been modified.

When one learns, through FEBIAC figures, that one in two vehicles sold in Belgium is a corporate vehicle, it is more than important to react.

The goal pursued by the introduction of a mobility allocation to reduce the number of vehicles on the road network is praiseful and ambitious. Our group shares it.

However, it should be remembered that Belgium has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030. This deadline is important, but you seem to forget another: Belgium has committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 15% by 2020, or in a little less than a year. According to a recommendation report of the Council of the European Union on the Belgian Reform and Stability Programme, however, Belgium should not ⁇ this goal if it does not address “collusion at peak hours, by improving public transport services, by optimising traffic management, by removing market distortions and harmful tax incentives such as favorable treatment reserved for commercial cars”. The Council continues to point out – which is quite worrying – that “despite the fact that this government intends to change the system of commercial cars, the positive effects of this reform on the environment will likely be limited.”

I would also like to stop on the budgetary consequences associated with the use of public cars. First of all, my group recalls that – and this is quite paradoxical in a country that subsidizes the use of a car so much – we do not have any clear and precise information on the total number of commercial cars in circulation in Belgium. Some organizations advance the figure of 670,000 vehicles and others, close to 450,000. However, there is a certain fact: the underestimation of this extra-wage benefit represents a considerable annual loss to gain for the Belgian State.

According to estimates of the Federal Plan Office, the annual social cost of this advantageous tax regime would exceed 900 million euros. At a time when apparently and according to the information communicated, the government MR/N-VA leaves a deficit of 7.7 billion euros, it would be appropriate (suggestion of our group) to turn to a profound reform of this fiscal niche.

As regards the reduction of traffic congestion on the road network, the State Council strongly doubts that the establishment of a mobility allocation is "an adequate means to ⁇ the objective pursued in terms of sustainable mobility".

This consideration is not isolated. In fact, it is also shared within the SPF Mobility itself, which predicts that only between 3 and 9% of households would be willing to exchange their corporate car for a sum of money. The National Labour Council (NCT) in its first opinion of 21 February 2018 stated that the mobility allocation as an isolated instrument will not be sufficient to solve all mobility problems, but that several tools should be combined within an integrated policy of sustainable mobility. The CNT thus refers to the mobility budget, which is more favorably welcomed by the social partners.

In its second opinion of 25 September 2018, the National Labour Council specifies that these two new measures – mobility allocation and mobility budget – must be budgetally neutral, in order to ensure the balance of the overall management of the ONSS.

The establishment of a mobility allocation and, at the same time, a mobility budget therefore does not appear to be consistent. As a result, the first one should be removed. On the other hand, the second has the merit of being much simpler and, above all, to better meet the goal of reducing traffic congestion. When it comes to the mobility allowance, the worker gives up his company vehicle altogether, in exchange for a certain amount. The mobility budget, for its part, is a much better tool in that it allows workers to opt for a more environmentally friendly and/or less expensive corporate car, by combining it primarily with other sustainable modes of transport such as the bicycle, the shared car and, now, the trolley. The choice left to workers therefore allows to consider mobility differently, in a sustainable, multimodal, but also and above all more environmentally friendly way.

Finally, according to a SD Worx study, there are not so many shuttlers with a company car and interested in a mobility allowance: 46% would actually opt for the car as a mode of travel.

In other words, the introduction of a mobility allowance would mostly result in the replacement of the use of one corporate vehicle by another for private purposes. DéFI does not therefore realize how this allocation is intended to reduce the number of vehicles in circulation and, in the end, traffic congestion.

Dear colleagues, you will understand, our group will not support the bill to introduce a mobility allowance, because we are deeply concerned that it will not lead to a significant decrease in the number of utility cars on our roads and that it does not lack, therefore, its first goal: namely, the substantial reduction of traffic congestion. On the other hand, for the reasons stated above, our group will support the bill to introduce a mobility budget.

First and foremost, I would like to express my thanks for the extensive cooperation in the creation of the two designs. Many Members of Parliament have collaborated on this. Social partners were also involved. I also thank the government and ⁇ my predecessor, Johan van Overtveldt, who carried out the vast majority of the work.

Many issues have already been discussed here. I think that the mobility fee and the mobility budget focus on two very different target groups and that it is therefore normal that the two continue to exist side by side. There is no contradiction between the two, they are simply intended for two different target groups.

As already mentioned, they offer a flexibility in remuneration, which one finally dares to take. Instead of always dealing with wages in a crampy-like way, it now gives more opportunities in terms of remuneration, opportunities that fully align with the multitude of opportunities in mobility today.

There is unlikely to be much innovation in the field of mobility. Through the flexibility we are now creating, we give a very important boost in the field of mobility innovation. I think that is a good thing for our country and for our society.

I would like to clarify that the amendment to the mobility fee is only aimed at bringing access to the system at the same level as the mobility budget.

I would like to thank everyone for the hard work done on the two bills, which, in my view, are very important and enjoy very broad support in Parliament.