Belgium Expat Forum

Fonzzy
Joined 2018
Posts: 2

6 years ago

taxes for US/Italian citizen working remotely in the US living in Belgium

6 years ago

As the title suggests, I am an Italian Citizen, interested in moving to Belgium, working for an American Company remotely. I am a dual national of Italy/USA.

We would like to relocate when our lease is up this summer. I can convert to a contract position which would pay more while shedding unusable benefits. I did some quick calculations using this site:
https://www.belgiumtaxcalculator.com/

It would seem I'd be liable to pay 52% of my income in taxes (not including any employment my wife finds). However, I'd technically be working as a US 1099 independent contractor. So I did some reading and it appears I would need to be taxed first as a corporation in Belgium at a rate of 33%??!? And then after that my personal tax rate applied?

That's something like 66% effective tax rate on my income for a country that doesn't even have single payer healthcare. But on top of that, I also read that the Social Security rate could actually go as high as 22% instead of 14%. This could push me well over 70% effective tax rate.

Am I overlooking something big here, or is this more or less accurate? I'm willing to pay a lot more in taxes to live where I want to live, but that would be crippling to the point where it would make no sense for me to take the much higher paying job and I would do better (or the same) to take a much lower paying local job.

Jon

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