Burocratic "Deburocracy"

This is one more example of the things I don't get about Belgium.

Last year they introduced the electronic tax declarations. And they announce it very proudly! I don't get why, if the system is in place in less developed countries like Portugal for at least 7 years.

Today I tried to get access to Tax-on-Web. I couldn't! They asked for the national registration number, the social security number and the belgium ID number. As I am a foreigner, I don't have a Belgian ID!

I call the Help Desk and as a result I start a chain of several phone calls to different services. In the meantime I had to stop, because one of them was closed for lunch.

After calling 6 different services I get to the right one. "Yes, we can help you but you have to come to our office", "OK, what's the address?", "I can't tell you now, only after we schedule a meeting".

No comments! In less developed countries like Portugal you just have to click on the web, introduce your tax number and you get it in 2 working days.

But nothing special. I'm much more upset with the fact that I didn't get my tax reimbursement for 2004 (yes, 2004!). In less developed countries like Portugal you receive it in less than 6 months!