Taxes

I received my tax letter in the mail yesterday. Good news: I get a bit more than a whopping €600 back! This really is welcome; I had feared I would have to pay extra, but not so. Good.

In case you're interested: in Belgium, your employer is supposed to withold a bit of your salary and send it to the tax administration, which is used as prepayments for your yearly personal taxes. Once a year, you have to fill out a form where you tell the tax administration how much money you made the year before, and how much costs (such as mortgages, etc) that give you right on reduced taxes you had. They then calculate how much money you're due, and compare that against the amount you've payed, which takes them almost a year. If you've payed too much, you get the difference back (without interests, though); if you didn't pay enough, you get to pay extra (also without interests).

Most people pay too much, and get some money back. Which is what everyone wants, because

1. if you find out you've got to pay extra, you've got to find an amount of money (often a few hundred euros) in about a month or three, and
2. if the government gets more prepayments than the amount of money the people are due, they still get interests on that money. Which is good for them.