Brussels to keep house bonus until 2017

While the house bonus (woonbonus), or mortgage tax relief, will be reduced in Flanders in 2015, the tax incentive will remain in Brussels through 2017. In this way the city’s new government hopes to encourage more people to move to the Brussels-Capital Region, De Standaard reported.

Many Flemings and Walloons work in Brussels, but pay taxes where they live, in Flanders and Wallonia. In the spirit of the new sixth state reform, in which Belgium’s regions now have more power to make their own decisions, the Brussels-Capital Region intends to capitalise on its new authority over personal tax issues such as the house bonus.

"Withdrawing the mortgage tax relief now would be contrary to our intention to encourage people to come and settle in the Region and therefore pay their taxes here as new residents," stated the Brussels coalition. The Government therefore intends to retain the existing house bonus, and possibly even expand it.