The Flemish Finance Minister Mathias Diependaele (N-VA) was brooding on it for a long time. Now the Flemish government has taken the plunge: gas-guzzling pickups will no longer benefit from ridiculously low taxes from January 1st, 2023.

At least, this will apply to privately used pickups, not to professionals. For a new Dodge Ram V8, for instance, taxes will go jump from 157,08 euros (yearly tax today) to a whopping 15 425,01 euros (registration tax included).

Until now, a pickup truck was always considered a ‘light freight’ vehicle and very lowly taxed because of its mainly professional use.- But the Flemish administration has noted that the number of pickups has tripled in ten years to merely 37 000.

Bought for pleasure

A lot of them –  almost half of them – are not used professionally but just bought for pleasure and to avoid taxes. These were lower than a classic ICE car, which is taxed according to its cylindrical volume and CO2 emissions.

To counter this improper use, the Flemish government wants to alter this aberrant behavior without penalizing real professional users. But the consequences will be devastating for the (private) lovers of these sometimes gas-guzzling vehicles with fat V8 engines that are imported massively and converted to run on LPG gas.

There is the example of the popular Dodge RAM, but on average, the reform will make registering pickups 4 000 to 7 000 euros more expensive and raise the yearly tax from 150 to 800 euros. But the big ones will be hurt the most. A Volkswagen Amarok 3.0 diesel, for instance, will cost 12.594,09 euros to register and 1.398,22 euros yearly additionally.

Some critical voices also point to the fact that such big vehicles don’t belong on Belgian roads. Their bulk and weight are even aggravating the accidents they’re involved in.