Self-employed people can deduct their social security contributions and business expenses when filing a tax return. The more you earn, the more you pay taxes. The Belgian tax system is indeed progressive: the higher your income, the more taxes you will need to pay in the following year. By logging expenses, your tax base is dropping so you become able to pay fewer taxes. These expenses can either be deducted on an ‘actual’ or ‘lump sum’ basis.

This is a very important point regarding your accounting: gathering a maximum of

professional costs, can significantly reduce the taxes to be paid on your income.

An accountant can help you optimize this result and can advice you how to increase your costs.

Actual expenses 

Any expenses you offset on your tax bill must relate to a professional activity and be declared at their actual cost. While most expenses are deductible at their full cost, some are only partly-deductible.

Some business expenses are easily recognizable, just like the purchase of your Deliveroo kit. You would otherwise never incur those costs: these are professional costs. Another straightforward example is your social contributions. You would not pay them if you were not self-employed: these are professional costs, also 100% deductible.

Finally, you also have to prove that you have incurred all these costs: an invoice, a correct VAT receipt, would do the job. 

We’ve created a list of professional expenses specifically for our riders on what you can deduct, and to what extent:

Type of Expense => Vat Deductable => Tax Deductable

• Bike => up to 100% => up to 100%
• Bike clothing => up to 100% => up to 100%
• Bike maintenance => up to 100% => up to 100%
• Accounting => up to 100% => up to 100%
• Insurance => up to 100% => up to 100%
• Bank costs => 0% => up to 100%
• Stationay, Ink& folders => up to 100% => up to 100%
• Social Contributions => up to 100% => up to 100%
• Food => N/A => N/A
• Training costs => up to 100% => up to 100%
• Computers, laptops, tablets & telephones => up to 75% => up to 100%
• Telephone costs => up to 75% => up to 100%
• Insurance for Electronics => 0% => up to 100%
• Professional Associations => up to 100% => up to 100%
• Interest => 0% => up to 100%
• Legal => up to 100% => up to 100%
• Fuel costs => up to 50% => up to 40%
• Internet => up to 75% => up to 100%
• Software (accountable) => up to 100% => up to 100%
• Stream & Music => up to 100% => up to 100%
• Public Transport => up to 100% => up to 100%

Lump sum deductions 

Since 2018  all self-employed individuals can opt for fixed-rate professional costs instead of actual professional costs. In other words, you can deduct the purchase of material, your social security contributions and a maximum of €4880 from your taxable income. It only makes sense to choose the lump sum deduction if your actual expenses are less than the lump sum or you can’t evidence your expenses fully.