Not worth the hassle unless we'rw talking at least thousands a year.
Not worth the hassle unless we'rw talking at least thousands a year.
- ~37€ if the self-employment is not subject to VAT (less than 25.000€ per year as self-employed)
- ~30.7€ if subject to VAT
(100€ / 1.21) [VAT] * (1 - 0.21) [Social contributions] * (1 - 0.53) [Federal tax 50% + local tax 50% * 6%]
I'd maybe look into it at $1000+, but most bounties aren't really anything close to making it worth your while if you have a job.
Tax evasion: You get some money. (Legally or not; the tax system doesn't care.) You are supposed to pay taxes on it but don't want to. You find a way not to, e.g. by hiding the income from the tax authorities.
Money laundering: You get some money by illegal means (theft, blackmail, whatever). You want to be able to use the money without having the authorities notice it, get suspicious about where it came from, and discover your crime. You find a way to pass the money from place to place so that by the time you actually do anything that might be noticed, it's difficult or impossible to trace it back to anything illegal.
[EDITED to add:] Also different from both: tax _avoidance_. You get some money. You don't want to pay taxes on it. It turns out that the law actually allows you not to, and you take advantage of that. But this feature of the law is unintended, or blatantly unfair, or clearly the way it is because of someone lobbying on behalf of people in situations like yours.
I suspect your second suggestion would actually get classified as tax _evasion_, though.
If you're at the edge of the 45% rate, the extra 100€ will be taxed at 50%, but the amount you earned previously will not be impacted and still be taxed as before.
Our taxes in Belgium are high, the salaries for engineers are well above average. In pratice, it's possible to end up in different tax 'scales', but they'll not end up in a net loss.
I'm also hugely in favour of the system here. Health care is a non-issue. I need prescription glasses (dioptry -8.5) and I pay nothing for those.
Yearly dentist appointment? about 20 euro you end up paying after the 'mutualiteit' pays you back. Similar for doctors appointments or hospital appointments.
Being married with a Mexican (family living in the US) I can tell you that I hugely prefer our system over the US or Mexican system.