Work-related costs scheme gets go-ahead
The implementation with effect from the first of January 2015 of the work-related costs scheme – with a few tweaks here and there – has been given the final go-ahead, as the State Secretary for Finance has now confirmed to the Lower House.
The following changes are to be made before the scheme is rolled out:
- Limited introduction of the necessity criterion;
- Annual settlement mechanism;
- Corporate regime;
- Exemption for products that are particular to own branch of industry;
- Abolition of distinction between fees, disbursements and assignments.
Free margin
The free margin is to be narrowed down from its current level of 1.5% to 1.2% in order to enable the above changes being implemented in a budget neutral manner, consultation having confirmed that the decision to reduce the rate will meet with acceptance.
Abolition of optional regime
The consultation round has moreover borne out that the public is keen to be told when exactly the optional regime is to stop being renewable, with a large proportion of respondents urging that only the work-related costs scheme should be upheld beyond 2015 as they considered there to be plenty of time to make the switch from the old to the new scheme, all the more so as the introduction of the annual settlement mechanism would do away with the need to check more than once annually, and at moments other than at year-end, whether the free margin had or had not been exceeded.