Speed pedelec: social treatment keyed to tax treatment

In our infoflash of 20 November 2017 we already announced that the ‘bike’ notion will be extended to speed pedelecs. We also wrote about the consequences hereof.
The social regulations now follow the tax regulations with retroactive effect until 1 January 2017.

A bicycle, an electrically driven motorised bicycle or an electrically driven speed pedelec is now considered as ‘bike’.

This new definition of the notion of ‘bike’ has as a consequence from 1 January 2017 that:

• the bike allowance that is awarded to a worker who uses a speed pedelec (cf. above) for commuting, will from now on be exempted from social security contributions to the amount of €0.23/km;
• the provision by the employer to his worker of a speed pedelec (cf. above) constitutes a benefit that is exempted from social security contributions. The exemption applies for the private use as well as for the professional use of the speed pedelec. However, it is imperative that the speed pedelec is used for commuting traffic.

The information we give is not yet official. The legal text must still be published in the Belgian Official Gazette.  

Sources:

• draft Royal Decree amending article 19, § 2 of the Royal Decree of 28 November 1969 implementing the Act of 27 June 1969 amending the Decree-Law of 28 December 1944 on social security for employed persons
• infoflash of 20 November 2017
• interim instructions Q4/2017 NSSO www.socialsecurity.be

Author: Anne Ghysels

27/12/2017