Since then, divorce has been simplified considerably ("a couple can now divorce in six months"); and other than in the realm of civil law (specifically relating to the death of spouse), spouses and legal cohabitants have roughly the same rights. "The inequalities that remain are slowly fading," he claims. “Today you have to look really hard to find them, except in civil law, of course."

Tax-related divorces

Some differences do remain, however, particularly in regards to taxes. In a chapter on tax obligations, Jean-Pierre Bours, a lawyer and honorary lecturer at ULg, reminds us of the inequity of the system created in 1962. The law that was adopted at the time established the principle of combining spousal incomes: their income was added together into order to calculate the tax due. This rule penalised the work of married women, given that the tax was progressive by income bracket, but it was also discriminatory as compared to de facto cohabitants. This led to a number of "tax-related divorces,” until lawmakers did away with the principle of combined income in 2004, "in order to introduce real ‘neutrality’ in the Belgian tax code in regards to life choices.”

But is the tax code truly neutral now? Jean-Pierre Bours has identified measures that sometimes favour spouses and legal cohabitants, and sometimes favour de facto cohabitants. For example, the "marital quotient" provides a tax reduction when the working partner allocates a fictional part of their income to the non-working partner, an advantage not available to de facto cohabitants. On the other hand, since de facto cohabitants file separate tax returns, they will never be responsible for tax their partner may owe, unlike couples who file joint returns. 

" […]There is a still a fair bit of disparity between the tax status of married taxpayers (or legal cohabitants) and de facto cohabitants," he concludes. “This is unfortunate, since these disparities do have a significant impact on the private decision to become legal cohabitants or not, or to get married or not. It's quite intolerable that the answer to these questions may depend on tax considerations."

But he proposes a “technically simple” solution: that all taxpayers be considered as individuals on their tax returns. "One problem would persist, however, related to the progressive nature of income tax. If you look at a couple where each person earns 50,000 euros, and another in which only one person works and earns 100,000 euros, the second couple will pay more than the first. Is this fair? [This reasoning] ignores the fact that there are "economies of scale" to life as a couple, such that a couple who earns 100,000 has fewer expenses than two single individuals who each earn 50,000 euros […]." A puzzling situation with no obvious solution.