Belgium, Part II: On Top of… Tax Burden

It really doesn’t stop.

This morning I woke up – yes, again- to yet another “award” for Belgium. My country appears to be the only place where working essentially means first working for the state—and only then, if anything remains, for yourself.

According to OECD data, the tax burden on labor in Belgium is the highest among developed countries. For a single worker, 52.5% of gross salary goes to taxes and social contributions. More than half of what you earn never truly reaches you.

And yet, in 2025, Belgium wins again.

Following closely behind are Germany and France—hardly known for light taxation themselves. Even they seem to look at Belgium with a mix of respect and concern.

What follows borders on surrealism.

And to be fair, without this, Belgium would probably never have produced René Magritte.

Because what we are witnessing is not just a paradox—it is a mystery nobody really wants to address.

Despite having the highest tax burden, Belgium also carries one of the highest fiscal pressures in Europe. In simple terms: the more the government collects, the more it seems to be missing.

A double first place.

A statistical masterpiece.

The Prime Minister, Bart De Wever, has called this situation immoral.

And yet, it continues.

The International Monetary Fund has been urging for years to reduce taxation on labor. Nothing radical—just the idea that, for an economy to function, people should have an incentive to work.

In Belgium, however, that becomes complicated.

Because the system must sustain a large public apparatus, in a country that also holds a quiet record: the highest numbers of parliamentarians per capita in the world.

All of this rests on an increasingly fragile foundation—a shrinking group of workers expected to carry it.

Working in Belgium is starting to feel less like employment and more like a philosophical exercise.

Or perhaps a modern version of fiscal servitude.

You work. The state takes. You work more. The state takes more. And somewhere in this perfectly circular system, the public deficit continues to grow.

This is no longer economic policy.

It is performance art.

The timing adds another layer of irony.

This news arrives just after Passover—the celebration of the end of slavery in Egypt.

A perfect coincidence.

Because here, no one is building pyramids.

Yet many have the impression they are working for something remarkably similar.

Belgium, once again, stays true to itself.

A country where paradoxes are not mistakes, but structural features.

A country where you can be:

• The most taxed
• Among the most indebted
• And still surprised that the system does not work

Without this surrealism, Belgium would not be Belgium.

But at this point, even René Magritte might have added a caption beneath the painting:

“This is not an economy.”