What income tax and what tax benefit for maintenance payments related to child custody? Fiscally speaking, the current logic is as follows: the parent who has custody pays tax on this income, and the other can reduce his taxes thanks to this pension paid. Modem MP Aude Luquet wants to reverse this logic. His bill, which may appeal to parliamentarians from all sides, will be studied on October 6 in the National Assembly.
Aude-Luquet
Deputy Modem of Seine-et-Marne
Declaring alimony for the parent who receives it, and asking for the deduction for the other: is it too complicated? And source of errors?
Aude-Luquet: More generally, the fact that the alimony paid to the parent who raises the child is taxed is a bias from our point of view. Today, when a judge decides on an amount of alimony, the fact is that this amount does not benefit the child 100% since part of it is subject to tax. This is not an exclusively tax issue, nor a gender debate [de fait, comme le souligne les dputs signataires dans l’expos des motifs de cette proposition de loi, dans prs de 70% des cas, la garde des enfants revient la mre contre pas tout fait 20% au pre, NDLR]: the purpose of this bill is to allow the entire pension to be used for the education of the child.
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In fact, as indicated in the statement of your proposal, the parent who receives the support is often the mother. And the incomes of women raising their children alone regularly deteriorate after a separation. In other words, the parent who receives the support is already likely not to be taxable.
AL: Yes. We actually make this observation. This measure therefore targets taxable households. But in some cases, it is precisely because this pension is taxed that the parent who receives it is taxable… We therefore want to reverse this logic. Moreover, the objective is not to create a windfall effect: we propose to limit this advantage [la dfiscalisation de la pension perue, NDLR] 4,000 euros per child and per year, i.e. a payment of just over 300 euros per month and per child, limiting the overall benefit to 12,000 euros.
Why the end of the deduction for the parent who pays child support? Do you feel that this tax advantage is no longer justified?
AL: It would be complicated, for public finances, to detax the alimony received [sans supprimer la dduction fiscale de l’autre parent pour compenser, NDLR]. Above all, on the merits, is this tax deduction useful for the education of the child? The determination of the amount to be paid by the parent not having the responsibility of the child to the parent having the responsibility depends on the judge. The question of taxes did not fit into this decision: we only want the parent who receives the pension to be able to devote this sum entirely to the education of the child or children for whom he is responsible.
And if, even if it is far from being the most common situation, the parent who pays is the one who has the most financial difficulties…
AL: I can hear this argument. But on this point, again, the determination of the amount of the pension is up to the judge. [et, en cas de difficults financires, il est probable que cette personne ne soit pas imposable, l’actuelle dduction ne servant alors rien, NDLR]. I have spoken with people who today use this tax deduction: several of them find our proposal quite logical.
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Your bill does not cite any date of entry into force: if it is voted, when would you like it to apply.
AL: As quickly as possible. We have positioned it in the first parliamentary niche of the Democratic group (Modem and independents) because we want to send a signal to single-parent families.
Your bill is co-signed by the entire Modem group. It was co-signed by members of the Renaissance group (ex-LREM) for a while, but this is no longer the case…
AL: Yes, but some Renaissance deputies will co-sign this text personally.
Do you hope to create a consensus on this text?
AL: Yes. I don’t see who can be against giving 100% child support! We are now going to talk to different deputies to create this consensus.
The government presents its measures for single-parent families
Without waiting for Aude Luquet’s bill, which will therefore be submitted to the vote of the deputies on October 6 during the parliamentary niche of the Modem, the Minister for Solidarity, Autonomy and Disabled Persons Jean-Christophe Combe presents to the Council of Ministers recent and future measures aimed at single-parent families. The first is the 50% increase in the family support allowance (ASF), paid by the CAF to families deprived of alimony or awaiting a pension: from November 2022, this benefit will be received by 815,000 households must increase by 122.93 euros 184 euros per child and per month. In addition, to fight against the 30% to 40% of unpaid child support, the government claims to strengthen from January 2023 the financial intermediation service between separated parents.