New Manual Wage Tax 2018 for Curaçao

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Written by Sue van Elteren
Posted on 5 Mar 2018 - 3 minutes read

A new Wage Tax manual for 2018 has recently been published. The previous version was released in 2004 and 14 years old in the meantime.

Below you will find a statement of some noteworthy changes and/or additions in the new manual:

Article 2.4 Article 45 ALL cards
This article now stipulates that this obligation does not apply if the third party to be specified is ‘obliged to keep an administration’. Such parties are all legal persons and natural persons who are entrepreneurs.

Article 9 Wage
In this article, new articles 9.2 Usual (DGA) wages and 9.3 Postponed wages are included.

Article 9.4.5 Free housing
This article now also includes the taxable benefit in case a rented house, which is fixed at 57.6% of the rent.

Article 9.4.8 Internet
In this article a taxable benefit of internet of ANG 600.00 per year is included.

Article 9.4.9 Interest-free loan
In this article, 6% interest is replaced by 4% interest.

Article 9.5 Wage in the form of claims to benefits
This article consisted of 5 articles in the HL2004. In the HL2018 this article has increased to 19 articles.

Article 9.5.12 Contributions for national insurances
This article now clearly states that the BVZ contribution for pensioners totaling 6.5% consists of an employer’s contribution of 2.8% and an employee contribution of 3.7%. These contributions only apply to ‘wages from current employment’. To ‘wages from previous employment’ such as pension benefits, the full 6.5% premium is paid by the pensioner.
The same article also states that in most cases no AOV/AWW-premium is payable on employees who do not live in Curaçao but, in most cases, they do have to pay AVBZ-premium.

Article 9.5.16 Gifts
This article includes a maximum untaxed value of ANG 250.00 per year, which gifts on the occasion of generally recognized public holidays, an anniversary, or the birthday and other personal holidays. This concerns ‘wages in kind’ and not ‘wages in money’. This ANG 250.00 may therefore not be paid out tax-free in cash.

Article 9.5.17 Computer
This article states that the provision of computers and associated equipment, as well as the reimbursement of costs thereof, is tax-free.
An employee can also use the value of up to 24 hours of leave per period of 2 years for the purchase of computers and the equipment.
The computers must be used for the fulfillment of the employment.

Article 9.5.19 Compensation Study debts
This article states that employers can provide untaxed contributions to employees for the payment of the interest on debts, the costs of loans and the repayments of study debts for the financing of a study program or study for a maximum amount of ANG 10,000.00 per year. This regulation may be applied for 10 years. To ensure that the contribution is used for the right purpose, it is advised to have the employer pay the payment directly to the creditor.

Article 11.4 Extra earnings
i
n this article, the term ‘overtime pay’ has been removed from the examples of extra earnings which are usually only received once or once a year. This item was mentioned in the HL2004 and is not a good example because in most cases overtime pay is paid every payment period, and not just once a year.

Article 12.1 Basic discount
This article states that foreign taxpayers are not entitled to apply the basic tax discount and fiscal allowances.
The same article states that the basic tax credit is included in the Wage Tax tables 2018, which, however, is not the case. See the Monthly Wage Tax table 2018 attached in which you can see that ANG 0.49 in Wage Tax must already be deducted from ANG 5.00 taxable wage per month.
In 2018, a new layout of the Wage Tax Statement (in Dutch: Loonbelastingverklaring) will be applied that requests whether the Basic Tax discount should be applied. See this new Wage Tax Statement and an explanation attached to this blog article.

Article 12.4 Elderly Allowance
In this article we read that despite the increase in the AOV age from 60 to 65 years, the Elderly Allowance continues to apply from the age of 60.

Article 14.1 Determination of the premiums payable under the AOV/AWW
It now clearly states that the maximum contribution per wage period must be taken into account per wage period.

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