A self-employed person or SME buying an environmentally friendly van would therefore be allowed to deduct 40 percent of the purchase price from its taxable profit. “To push entrepreneurs in a certain direction, the government often works with such investment deductions,” explains Minister De Sutter. In 2021, for example, an increased investment deduction was already introduced for emission-free trucks. “We’d best extend that to vans.”
As a second measure, the cost deduction for vans that emit polluting gases should therefore be reduced from 2028, she says. Just as it will happen from 2026 for commercial vehicles that run on petrol or diesel. “Before we start fiscally discouraging polluting delivery vans, I propose that we first fully encourage the emission-free alternative in the coming years,” said the Minister of Civil Service, Government Companies, Telecommunications and Post.
“In Belgium, vans are becoming electric, but it is not going very quickly. In 2021, 625 e-vans were registered with us. In 2022 there were 1,604. That is more than double, but if we look at the bigger picture, “It remains a slow start. Of the more than 44,000 new vans that were already registered this year, only 3.6 percent have an electric drive,” says De Sutter.