Do you pay child support to your loved ones? It is up to you to declare the amount to the tax authorities. Do not think that any amount paid is deductible from your taxable income!
Family is for life! Several provisions of the Civil Code provide for a duty of family support. This reciprocal maintenance obligation exists for parents towards their children and vice versa, but also for the benefit of grandparents and grandchildren, and vice versa.
However, generation skipping is not possible: the alimony paid by a child to his grandfather or grandmother is deductible only if his own parents are financially defaulting or deceased. Similarly, grandparents can only deduct assistance provided to their grandchildren in need if the child’s parents are unable to provide assistance.
Help for parents in need
Family solidarity is not limited to elderly or sick parents. Even if they are young and in good health, you have an obligation to help your parents make ends meet if their income is insufficient to enable them to live decently. The term food has a broad meaning and refers not only to cash payments, but also to food, housing, clothing, health costs, electricity bills… If you pay these expenses directly on behalf of your parents, they constitute alimony in the same way as cash payments. It is up to you to set the amount that will allow your parents to live decently, while remaining within reasonable limits. The tax authorities may challenge part of the amount deducted if they consider it excessive.
A double-edged sword
Alimony works according to the system of communicating vessels: it is a tax deductible from income for the person who pays it and constitutes taxable income for the person who collects it. If the parent or parents receiving your support have other income, this may make them taxable, or at the very least lead to the reduction or even the elimination of certain social benefits they receive, such as housing assistance.
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Separation, divorce, studies… aid paid to minor or adult children
If your minor children do not live under your roof, the alimony that you pay to the other parent to meet their needs is a deductible expense from your taxable income. The amount of alimony can be fixed by a court decision, in a lawyer’s deed in the event of an amicable divorce, or by agreement between the two parents. On the other hand, the law prohibits the deduction of any alimony paid for a child who lives under the alternating residence regime.
The assistance paid to your child over the age of 18 who does not live under your roof is considered as alimony deductible from your taxable income when he cannot meet his needs due to his disability or his studies, for example. The child may also find himself in a state of need because he is unemployed, with no or very little compensation, on RSA or sick. The maintenance obligation towards a child does not stop at the age of majority, nor at the age of 25.as it is sometimes believed: your duty of mutual aid subsists whatever his age when he is in a situation of need.
The maximum deductible for child support
Alimony paid to an adult child is deductible within the limit of 6042 euros per yearper child in need, for 2021 income declared in 2022.
Alimony tax return
The tax authorities cannot guess that you owe maintenance to one or more of your relatives. Also, you must declare the amount on your income tax return in the box 6 entitled Deductible expenses on page 4 of the paper declarationor the end of step 3 (chapter your expenses) for the online declaration.
Declaration of income: these 10 boxes that the tax authorities cannot pre-fill
You will declare these payments on one or other of the 6EL or 6EM lines for adult children who are not counted as dependents, or 6GU, 6GP, 6GI Where 6GJ depending on the parent relationship (minor child, adult child, parent, ex-spouse) and whether it is a maintenance payment resulting from a court decision. Under the boxes for declaring the amounts, you must indicate the names and addresses of the person(s) receiving maintenance.
First, the declared alimony is deducted from your taxable income. In the three years that follow, the tax authorities can challenge the deduction of maintenance if they consider, for example, that the beneficiary is not in a state of need or that the amount is too high. For his part, the person receiving the alimony must declare it to the tax authorities since it is income.
Taxation and attachment of adult children: is it profitable?
Transfer: useful proof
For all support payments deducted, you must be able, if the tax authorities so request, to justify that they were actually paid and that their beneficiary is in need. It is wise to pay alimony to favor the transfer (possibly automatic) from your bank account to that of the beneficiary: you will find proof of payments more easily if you are asked for them.