Living in Europe Belgium (Taxation theft by the government) – Electricity Cost and Green energy taxation's

This year my electricity bill was pretty high so I started to investigate the different taxation's. I have been calculating the price prediction because I started mining Crypto currencies with a friend at my place. But it is nearly impossible in Belgium to do this (Can you believe in the hart of Europe there are now digital meters available. I dove deeper in the bill and will discuss all the different taxation, distribution and transport sections with the supplier. After that I elaborate how it all fits together.

So this story is not about Crypto, it’s about clean energy and how governments are using it as an excuse to tax people. This is happening in multiple sectors like also the internet.. Below you can find the overview of my bill. I marked some sections with colors.

The bill is automatically divided in 3 separated payments by the supplier. The 1st is for the supplier “Lampiris” and they act like the middle man between the customer and the provider. We have a number of these companies. So those guys you have the pay the actually usage of electricity. Well I picked this company now because they had the best plan for that time of the year. I will change every 3 months if that saves us some money. In some regions it is possible to skip the middle men and sign a contract with the provider. Unfortunately this doesn't apply for me.

Within the green box you can find the electricity usage for day and night. This amounts to 212 Euro and is about 22% of the total amount of the bill. Then in the 1st Red box I have to pay a tax for some windmills that are built on an offshore platform to help Belgium create more green energy. These taxes are a direct result of the global warming policy. Don't mistake me I think it's a great to start using more energy, but to pay more and receive the same amount of green energy, well that is something different.Then I'm paying daily for this certain contract and because it was a promotion. That really sounds like a contradiction, so when I asked about this they said I should see it as an administrative cost (abonnement_TOP). I find this strange because I pay them for electricity that should be calculated in the price already and not to forget there only job is literally doing the administration of this process..

Then there is a reduction in cost for that promotion. This means 30% reduction on the electricity usage. So on 20% of the bill I will receive that promotion. So yeah my idea that I had when mining for crypto and using more electricity didn’t get my anywhere.

Another fun fact is that they claim 100% Green energy and actually there are some others suppliers claiming this. In the end you will understand why this is impossible.

Now for the 2nd section of the bill, this contains all the information about the provider that works for the government. Within certain areas of Belgium you will get an appointed company that will provide you with the energy needed. This is for electricity and gas the same company. These guys are funded by the government. The first point in this section is the rent you pay for the meter.
As I stated before we don’t have a digital meter yet so that is rent paid for an old meter.. At least they are making money to hopefully invest in digital meters but that will be by the end of 2019-2020 without any delays (knowing the Belgium government they always claim something went wrong and then probably ask more money in the end). You always have the option to invest in a digital meter but all the costs are yours and we are talking about more then a 1000 Euro.

This is already a disaster in these days as the people are never sure when they are losing power due to faulty wiring or a broken machine inside the house. You are forced to constantly check the meters to know how much you are using. In my understanding this is the responsibility of the supplier, but those companies are just here to do the administration and collect the payment.

Another fun thing to node is that you will receive tax reduction whenever you install more isolation and such things to keep to heat inside. This while we have global warming? Another contraction as we didn’t even come to the tax part of this story in full.

I know I'm using Obama in the picture but this is not about the United States or any political party.

So then we have the transport and distribution (night/day) for the provider. This is the infrastructure and the transport. I understand this cost money for the government and again in my idea this is why the provider is funded by taxes. It is still ridiculous that the most part of this bill is to maintain our structure and the transport of all this. That’s about 56% of the bill. In the end I pay another offshore tax that is actually used for the same wind mill park as Belgium doesn’t really have many other parks.

I think the international space community and maybe even Alien life force (If they are out there) know the location of Belgium pretty well. During the night we are like a direction indicator for the astronauts (as you can see in the picture below).

I don’t know other countries that leave so many streetlights on just for safety. The result is that I’m horrible at driving in the dark. I can’t see the lines clear because my eyes are adapted to the light while driving. Actually the energy companies earn dividends by leaving the street lights on so it’s a strange win/win situation for them and all the remaining costs are directed to us.

Finally we come to the taxation part of the bill. Wouldn’t have guessed it buy yeah some other taxes. There are 3 different taxes for the government, the translation being: Federal contribution, energy contribution and a contribution for an energy funds.

Belgium is a crazy country that is divided in three big regions: Flanders (Dutch), Wallonia (French) and Brussel (>90% French and also the capital of Europe). The Federal contribution is a form of surcharge to finance the energy market, control and regulate it within one of these regions.

The contribution for an energy fund is actually a taxation you pay to the company that is regulating the market so pretty much the same thing as the federal contribution.

And last but not least it is the controversial one. The energy contribution was a taxation implemented in the last years by the politicians. This year the government stated it was not fair to claim this tax. Yet at the same time they wouldn’t refund this amount. It was about 100 Euro for a year for every household so it doesn’t even matter how much you are using. For a company this is peanuts but for the people that are getting sucked dry in the current society. Now this taxation will be refunded for 75% and when this will happen nobody knows for certain.

At least we are still able to turn Crypto Mining into a profit. Also it was a pleasant feeling during the winter. The apartment was heated only with the miners the last 3 Months, as tights are turning I will need to change somethings before it becomes a sauna inside.

Conclusion:

I wanted to get this part out of the way before I start showing you guys the bigger problems. Belgium is always late with
new inventions. Only a few Windmill parks where build while most prospering country's in Europe invested much. Now we are still stuck with nuclear power plants that should have been shut down for safety reasons and not to mention this had to be done for global warming (Paris Agreements). Still the government is keeping them running because we don’t have enough energy for supply the country. I think they are still making way to much money. These days they are even giving pills out to the population for the effects of nuclear power. This is for pregnant woman and the younger generation. It is known that this target is not reached and old people are taking the pills without knowing what the effects are or will be. This is making my skin crawl.

The problem is actually our politicians. We see this in many industries like internet, electricity and the big pharma companies. Some politicians will advise at board meetings of these companies. During the political discussion they will promote the best idea for the company rather than the people. These are conflicting interests but the corruption is been going on for to long. These big company's have the power.

The effects:

These bills for internet, water, food, taxations, energy and so on are constantly growing and causing the middle class to slim down.

I’m 29 Years old and have been wondering why a country in the middle of Europe is not flourishing, we have no war and we have a highly educated country. It’s because the money is going back to the company and not people. Instead of improving healthcare and education we take money from those sections to pay the debts as taxes grow. But still it seems impossible as the debt keeps growing and the taxes keep rising. Not to mention the pressure this is caution for the young people and even the students who are getting depressed.
And for my last piece of evidence, check out this chart.

I checked the official site for all this information within Europe and you can see we are not even making our promises to the Paris agreement. This leaves me to wonder where that money is going to and how all companies can produce clean energy as the country is performing so badly.. Some of my friends contacted me already for there unique problems regarding the electricity.. So a follow up of this story will come..

I would like to know how this is going in other countries. What are you paying for electricity and how much is tax? In Belgium it’s around 20cent per kW.