It's kind of greedy to accept a pension from your homecountry, but not wanting to pay tax to the very same country.

Greedy ????? I have worked aprox 45 years and I will receive aprox € 500, before tax per monthon pension.

Whom is greedy !!!! Me or the country I have worked for ?Notice that I am Dutch and NOT Belgian !!! This is one of the reasons tha we CERTANLY will emigrate to Thailand and try to avoid pay ( high ) taxes.

Belgium is one if not the highest country on income tax of the world !!!!![/b]

Maybe you understand now a little bit better why.

Sincere greetings from NOT a greedy and certanly honest man !

josef

Some people just don't understand the concept of a welfare system, someone have to pay for it, like it or not.

What is a welfare system , if you pay your whol life and get " peanuts " in return ?

As long as one is young and contribute , than it is o.k. , but from the moment you slac down and like to retire and have some pension ( you have paid for all the time you have worked ), they give you almost nothing in return and on that nothing one has to pay high taxes !

So that is all for the moment !

The concept of allowing premium payments into the pension fund to be deducted from taxable income and then later tax the pension benefits, I believe, is to reduce the tax burden. Generally, during his working life a tax payer is in a higher tax bracket than after retirement.

This said, it is of course legitimate for somebody to take advantage of possibilities to avoid taxes. Note: I am talking about tax avoidance (legal), not tax evasion (illegal). I can see nothing illegal in what Joseph had planned to do – but cannot do because of limitations in obtaining Thai citizenship.

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Maestro

I know nothing about Belgium and its taxes, but standard international agreements mean that taxes are based primarily on the concept of residency, so that if you live in a place for more that 183 days per year, the tax laws of that country would then apply.

As I said, I don't know, but it is something you may want to investigate.

If I am totally wrong however, you'd be better of moving to somewhere else in the EU (as is your right) and gain citizenship of another country that way. The trail is long and hard here in Thailand for citizenship, at leat 8 years if I am not mistaken versus the usual 4 or 5 in most EU states.

Samran

AFAIK, a UK personal or company pension is always paid after deduction of taxes.

Regards taxation of pension income, British Citizens living abroad are still allowed to claim U.K. tax allowances. ……Khom.