Belgian municipality levies tax on self-scan checkouts

The Belgian municipality of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, in the Brussels region, levies a tax on self-scan checkouts. From now on, supermarkets will have to pay almost 6,000 euros per year per self-checkout in the municipality.

Self-checkout Delhaize

The city council has approved the measure to protect employment and to get more money in cash, according to the report of the city council. The proposal states that the city council believes ‘that self-checkouts are at the expense of employment, because consumers are asked to do some of the work previously done by wage earners’. In addition, the proposal states that ‘the main purpose of this tax is to provide the municipality of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek with the financial resources necessary for its missions and for the policy it wants to pursue, and also to ensure its financial equilibrium ‘.

It concerns an annual tax that will amount to 5,600 euros this year and will subsequently be 2.5 percent higher each year, so that in 2025 it will be 6,000 euros per self-scan checkout. The measure will take effect this year, meaning that supermarkets will soon have to pay. The tax will yield the municipality around 11,200 euros per year.

It concerns only one supermarket chain that has self-scan checkouts, reports VRT. It concerns the Delhaize chain, which had its head office in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek until 2020. The chain reports that self-scan checkouts have been in the municipality for fifteen years. Moreover, this has not been at the expense of employment, the supermarket claims.