PCLI/VAPZ: which one to choose?

The end of the year is nearing, and it's time for me, and maybe all belgian starters, to take a look at what your income will be and optimise your fiscal situation.

First thing: if you have income higher than 11000€ for the year and you decided to pay the minimum social security contribution of 600€, you will have a regularisation, in the sense that you will have to pay you social contribution on your revenue above 11000€. The trick is that those social contributions are deductible from the revenue you have to put in your tax declaration. But for that to apply, you have to make the payment this year! (here's some more info: fr, nl).

If you started after 30 march, also note that this year is not full, you have only 3 quarters. It means that the definitive social contributions you will have to pay will be based on your revenue of next year. For the social contribution, you better make profit this year than next. But remember that more profit this year mean you'll pay more taxes too. So honestly, I'm not sure how this all combines. Any hint?

And finally, the subject of this post: as an indépendant/zelfstandige you can subscribe to a additional retirement fund: FAPZ (in dutch)/PCLI (in french). You can contribute up to 8.17% of your revenue, with a maximum of 2686.05€ yearly. And it's 100% deductible from your revenue!

You'll see there is a social vapz/pcli, which includes a guaranteed revenue insurance, but it's not that interesting I've heard: the part of your payment going to the retirement fund is lower, as you pay your guaranteed revenue insurance of course.

Now my question: any advice on where I should take my vapz/pcli? Are there big differences between the providers? I'm currently at Acerta, which works with KBC. Any opinion on their offering?

Furthermore, any further advice on optimisation of revenue for independant workers?

Ever needed to schedule a mail in the future?

It regularly happens that I want to schedule a mail to be sent at a certain time in the future. The ideal tool would also let me invite others to subscribe to this one time mailing, for example to remind people of the next Profoss, even if they don't want to subscribe to the newsletter.

If oyu don't find it, build it they say. Well, here it is: Taktiki.com.

And it's simple: no authentication is needed: created you mail, validate the sender address, and add recipients or invite people to subscribe to that one-time mail. For example, to get a reminder on monday for Profoss' ERP event on tuesday, you can subscribe here

In the hope this can help other people out there!

PS: for those who wonder: yes, that's the best I can do in web design. And that's with the help of YUI's CSS and grid help

ERP event nearing!

If you're interested in Open Source ERP systems, be sure to attend the next Profoss event on 18 november!

I'm excited by the interesting content that will be presented: Adempiere, Openbravo, OpenERP will have a presentation, a method for evaluating open source ERPs will also be presented.

Registration is still open, but don't wait too long to register!