Challenge for Belgians !!??

[Petit_pertotal]

I think the gamblers will stay anyway because they don't care about rake and rakeback.
but the serious players that like to get an edge and grind who make calculated decisions have no options anymore on any website..

I was planning to grind sngs again but instead i am just playing my satellite tickets as recreation instead of grinding and this will be the end for Belgium in online poker.. as we all know our government is the muppet show & fawlty towers in 1 + the next ellection will be about migration, economy, .. and poker won't be a topic i think. so my guess..
1- if you are a reaaaaal pro / grinder move to another country like Kenny Hallaert (moved to London) or Michael Gathy (moved to Malta)
2 - go play live poker in casino's? (if rake is oke? no experience so don't know if this is a good move)
3 - Find another hobby / side income?
4 - if nothing gets fixed find an illegal website? (don't think that is a topic that can be discussed here..)
5 - Wait untill (hopefully) platforms we love to play like unibet gets a work around.

[FreedoM]

@Petit_pertotal  Yeah FeelsBadMan, but it could be worse not having online poker at all, like the USA.
Honestly if you rely on rakeback you shouldn't play poker professionally in the first place, you should look at it as a bonus not as a necessity. 

Do you think live players get rakeback? Or the people that grind private games?

[Petit_pertotal]

hey Freedom i do know we could still grind and be profitable but knowing that you lose some ev because of this and the higher stakes you upscale the more impact (disadvantage) you have is a major factor.

as you know from my sng blog my roi was nice (without rakeback) but still this was on micro stakes.
If you see other blogs who play for example 25€ sng's and are good players they are slightly profitable in roi% on major samples so most profit is from rakeback there (or at least a good part of it..)

but indeed if you play the micros the impact is less and it's more a motivation disadvantage (but big enough for even me who had 15% roi quit the grind scene untill it's solved)

as you know i am not the gambler type or addicted type and i see poker more as a business but if you can't upscale with the same variance as others it's not worth it.

[wwaanneess]

i know that you should be winning a poker, also without rakeback, but if you're from belgium, you're just fed up with government decisions, for exemple i refuse to do extra hours on my job, because when you work extra hours you get taxed so high on it, it's just not worth it, same now with these poker rules, it just demotivates you to play, because you're so tired of these horrible regulations in every possible situation in life...

[Petit_pertotal]

Ye wannes same here..
I have a side business and I would like to invest the money I make every year in stocks,.. But because our taxes I would lose 70% of my money I made in a year.. So I need to spent most of my business money to more useless things.

But still spending it to useless things (that are fiscal oke) or giving it to the government is an easy choice..

[Petit_pertotal]

It's of topic but this is about my last post and that one from wannes

My side buesiness

At first you need to pay "province tax" this is a fixed amount for east flanders 120 / year 

Then the income tax, in my case this is 50% because I am in "schijf 4"

Then you have the Municipal surcharges this is 7% (50%+7% of 50% is 53,5% from net profit

Then I need to pay social contribution, this is 20,5 %

So in total its about 74% taxes if I would invest my money. And because of this reason I make costs on purpose so they can't tax me because I almost have 0 net profit. 

Example :

My side business makes 30k.. When you do the math I would have 7.8k to invest and pay 22.2k to the government (BIG NONO!)

If I make 30k and spend it on for example a car and stuff,.. And my profit is small like 1500 euro or something  then I only have to pay like (760 income tax, 120 province tax, free social contributions because my net profit is below 1500 euro)

So in this case I make 30k spend 28,5k to a car lease and other stuff, keep 620 net profit and pay only 880 to taxes

But as I said I would prefer to invest it for later but that's not possible unless you don't mind to pay 73% taxes. If I charge an. Hourly rate of 50 euro (excl. 21%Vat' so customer pays 60,5 per hour) and choose this option then I need to pay 36,5 (50*0.73)taxes for this hour and keep 13,5 euro net profit...

But

On the other side our guvernment sometimes have leaks as well for example if you bought a house before 2020 (which I did) you get every year about 1k free at income tax and from year 11 untill 30 600 free euro a year so - > 22k net free money

And now yesterday that did prove a law that only in 2021 you get 1.5k free if you place a sunroof 

With other words my sunroof will cost me 5k but you can use a free green loan from the government as well so after this is done in 2020 I didn't invest anything, get to keep 1.5k free taxes plus just need to pay my almost interest free green loan instead of paying my electricity bill.. 

And after my free loan (3-5 year) I get free electricity for the next 15 years or something and the government makes the investment for you because of the green loan plus they give you 1.5k to do it.. So our government also gives things.. The problem is that you need to make use of those things immediately because like now the 22k free over 30 years law is already gone but because I did it last year then can't take it away anymore and they need to pay me for the next 29 years.. Plus like this law from yesterday about sunroofs it's only possible in 2021 for the 1.5k free taxes and in 2022 its 75% anymore, 2023 25% 2024 you get nothing anymore.. 

Example in 2021 I get 1k free money because I bought a house in 2019 plus get 1.5k free money because I will place a sunroof on cost of the government =2.5k net free untaxed money. 

So in my opinion you need to pay a ton of taxes unless you play it tax smart in my plan 2 for a side business and every year you need to check if the guvernment did fiscal changes where you can profit on like the 2 things mentioned in the last part of the post. 

[Petit_pertotal]

any update yet about  a solution? 

i would like to start playing again .. :-)

a tip, a belgian site called ladbrokes has promos with payesafecards.

[ReCorpH]

Nothing has changed yet.

[Lerre]

Guys, over a month has past and still no changes. Look at the size of this topic. 

The truth is, that many sites are still offering some form of bonusses to the players. Myself I have won a 1k ticket on bwin recently. And I get a dailly 'odds boost' on sportsbet there too.

There are many ways around this new vague and completely clueless law.

You guys have a responsibility against your loyal Belgian players. We know there is a new law. There are multiple ways to work past this in a legal way. A free 5k tournament for Belgian players who rake 

[Lerre]

Me personally I went from almost full time HU grinding to just nothing now. I feel you are using this to dump an extra cost and make more profit on the back of the loyal Belgian players.