This simplified declaration is 1/2 A4 page. The full declaration is 15 long A4 pages. I think we can say that this is a shining example of administrative simplification. Thank you to those who have implemented it.

As for access, that’s another story. I suggest you do it with me, just for fun #règledes3clics.

Type ‘belgium income tax simulation’ into a search engine.

1. Belgium.be

For me, the 1st result refers to the Belgium.be site. This site contains links to the main Belgian public services at all levels (for your information, there are 1,200 official sites…).

This portal of links proudly displays the new visual identity of the Belgian authorities. It is highly recognisable because it uses the 3 colours of our flag: black – yellow – red. The graphic form is a dot followed by the first 2 letters of the country’s name. By using web terminology with a dot in front of the acronym, this visual identity appears very contemporary, showing that it has the codes of the digital world. So far, I’d say it’s a no-brainer.

2. FPS Finance

We land on the FPS Finance site, which is a sub-domain of belgium.be #bonneidée. It sports the old (very old) logo. This one is in shades of grey. Its graphic form is a complex coat of arms with a lion and a crown, surrounded by elements that cannot be identified at this size. A text is associated with it on the right, SPF Finances. As we are in Belgium, this site can be consulted in 4 languages. The logo text has obviously been translated into Dutch, English and German.

Oops! This text is an image! You can’t change it without using graphics software, exporting it in web format, uploading it to the server, and so on. What’s more, German contains more letters. It is longer than other languages. As it’s a still image, instead of giving it more space, they preferred to reduce the size of the text. This seems crude and sends out the message that the German language is ‘smaller’ than the others. Re-ouppss

3. Web tax

This is starting to get a bit annoying.

• the url is unbelievable
• it’s already the 3rd click and still no calculation simulator
• the logo has radically changed style and colour (cyan and web blue). 2 fonts, the 1st in uppercase Geometric sans serif, the 2nd in bold handwriting.

4. Tax-Calc

All bets are off! Big red boxes, no focus on the fields to be filled in.

The system asks us to fill in the entire tax sheet, whereas this calculation is done automatically when I’m logged in.

How do I log in to my account to estimate my tax?

It will take another 6 clicks through 6 different systems, 6 different graphic identities, to access my tax sheet.