The Royal Decree of 16 December 2015 containing the Belgian wage withholding tax scales for income year 2016 was published in the Belgian Official Gazette of 21 December 2015.
These annually updated wage withholding tax scales are applicable (for payroll purposes) to income that will be paid or attributed to individual resident or non-resident taxpayers of Belgium as from 1 January 2016 and to the extent that there is a wage withholding tax obligation in Belgium.
In the case of non-compliance (i.e. in case of incorrect filing or non-filing of wage withholding tax returns and late or no payment of wage withholding taxes due) administrative fines ranging from EUR 50.00 up to EUR 1,250.00 may be imposed by the tax authorities. Moreover, a tax increase of 10% up to 200% of the withholding taxes due may be applied.
The Belgian tax authorities have announced on their website that, as of 1 January 2016, the above-mentioned administrative fines and/or tax increases will be applied systematically for every infringement. Therefore, the processing of correct wage withholding tax amounts via the Belgian salary administration and a timely and accurate filing of wage withholding tax returns become even more important going forward.
