Does your contractor have debts to the NSSO or the tax authorities?
April 2022 – Companies and self-employed persons who use a contractor for construction work must ensure that the contractor does not have any debts to the NSSO or the tax authorities. If this is the case, a withholding obligation applies. You can easily check whether such a deduction is necessary via the link https://www.checkobligationderetenue.be.
You and your contractor
You are obliged to check whether your contractor has debts to the NSSO or the tax authorities if you commission work from the following list:
building work (with the exception of certain activities in the agriculture, horticulture and forestry sectors)
delivery of ready-mixed concrete
certain guarding or surveillance services (art. 30ter of the Act of 27 June 1969 - Royal Decree of 17 July 2013), and
work in the meat sector.
This obligation only applies to you if you are a company or a self-employed person. Private individuals who have work carried out on a building used exclusively for private purposes do not have any obligation to retain.
Obligation to withhold
There are actually two separate regulations... One concerns tax debts and the other social security debts. If you find that your entrepreneur has debts to the FPS Finance (whether tax debts or non-tax debts), you must withhold 15% of the amount of the invoice payable (excluding VAT). And you must pay this amount to the FPS Finance.
If you find that he has social debts, you must pay 35% to the National Social Security Office.
Check your obligation to deduct
How do you know if your entrepreneur has debts? The FPS Finance and the National Social Security Office have joined forces for this purpose. On the website https://www.checkobligationderetenue.be, you can check whether the entrepreneur has debts on the basis of his company number.
If he has no debts - you will see a green screen - you can download a certificate of consultation of the obligation to deduct. This certificate is valid only until the date indicated on it (in principle it is valid until the last Thursday of the month).
If you pay the bill on or before this date, you do not have to deduct anything. If you do not pay the invoice until later, you will have to check the website again.
If, on the other hand, you see a red screen for the tax component or for the social component or for both, you must make the deduction. As we said, you must pay 35% of the invoice amount (excluding VAT) if there are debts to the NSSO. And you must pay 15% of the invoice amount (excluding VAT) if there are debts to the FPS Finance.
With regard to tax debts, a clarification is in order: if you still want to pay the contractor on the day of the consultation, you have two options:
If the invoice amount is less than 7,143 euros (excluding VAT), you must withhold 15%.
If the amount of the invoice is equal to or greater than 7,143 euros, the contractor can ask for a certificate with the amount of his debt. If you pay the contractor within the 20 days of validity of this certificate, and the amount of the debt shown on the certificate is less than 15% of the amount to be paid (excluding VAT), you can limit the deduction to the amount shown on the certificate. If it is higher, you must withhold 15%.
Penalties
In order to 'encourage' you to comply with the withholding obligation, the legislator has provided for sanctions, and they are not the least of them. If you do not make the deduction, you are liable to the following penalties
an administrative fine equal to twice the amount that should have been withheld and paid ;
joint and several liability for payment of the contractor's tax and non-tax debts up to 100% of the invoice amount.
Although the obligation to withhold for the entrepreneur's tax and social security debts has existed for a long time, we still feel it necessary to warn you of the consequences of incomplete administration. If you have nevertheless paid 100% of the invoice to a contractor with social security and tax debts, you will be fined twice 15% + 35% of the invoice amount. You may also have to pay the contractor's debts up to 100% of the invoice amount.
