Children must help their parents materially or financially when the latter no longer have the means to provide for them. You can deduct some of these expenses from your taxable income.
French law, namely articles 205 et seq. of the Civil Code, provides for a reciprocal support obligation between parents or in-laws and their children. By children, we must understand legitimate or recognized children, adopted children (simple or full adoption), children of a first marriage or even stepchildren. In the latter case, the obligation only concerns the first degree of parent, that is to say only the parents-in-law and not the other ascendants. This obligation does not concern sisters and brothers, nor aunts and uncles.
Food, housing, clothing… deductible expenses
The maintenance obligation, called pension, can take the form of a payment in money or in kind, such as the purchase of food, clothing and other basic necessities. All these expenses can be deducted from your taxable income, condition to provide proof that the pension has been paid and that its amount corresponds to the needs of the person receiving it and the resources of the person paying itinsists the tax administration.
THE housing expenseslike the accommodation costs in retirement homes or nursing homes and hospitalization costsare also deductible, provided that you are able to justify the amounts deducted to the tax authorities in the event of an audit. Likewise, if you make one of your real estate assets available to one of your ascendants, you can take its rental value into account in the amount of alimony paid. On the other hand, the charges that are incumbent on you as the owner of the accommodation, such as property tax, cannot be deducted from your taxes.
Are you hosting one of your parents at home?
If the parent is hosted under your roof, the deductible amount is fixed. For this 2024 declaration of 2023 income, you can thus subtract 3968 euros per ascendant collected, without proof, but on condition of being able to prove the insufficient resources of this parent in the event of an inspection. If this deduction seems insufficient to you, you can carry forward the costs actually incurred provided you are able to justify the amounts, using invoices, and their payments, using bank statements.
How to deduct child or parental support
Case-by-case checks
However, be careful of the risk of overestimating your deductions… or using this package of 3968 euros without meeting all the conditions. An example. The tax administration allows you to use this package for an ascendant living in your home but you must be able to prove the state of needwhich means that his personal resources are insufficient to meet his needs.
From there, although there is no reference amount, the tax services can for example take into account the thresholds for the solidarity allowance for the elderly (Aspa), i.e. 11,533.02 euros per year (for income 2023) for a single person. As a reminder, your various supporting documents – those proving the effective payment of alimony and the financial precariousness of the dependent ascendant must be kept for 3 years.
If in doubt, you can ask the tax authorities about the possibility of deducting or not this or that expense. Their response, called a tax ruling, may require a waiting period of 3 months. You must therefore anticipate and, in case of doubt, it is preferable to refrain from deducting the expenses incurred for your loved ones.
Alimony payments to be declared in box 6GU
In practice, once you have consolidated the deductible expenses paid to your parents, you must indicate their total amount in the box 6GU of your income tax return. Called Other alimony paid (minor children, ascendants, etc.), this box is located on page 4 in the Deductible expenses section on paper, and at the end of step 3 (chapter your expenses) for the online declaration.
Welcoming an elderly person other than a parent
If you are hosting or have hosted in 2023 a person over 75 years of age other than an ascendant, your brother or sister, an uncle, an aunt or any elderly person with whom you are not related – you can do so. further deduct 3968 euros.
To do this, the person collected must have a taxable income of less than 11,533.02 euros (Aspa threshold). To report this charge to the tax administration, you must complete a supplementary declaration form 2042 C – on the paper declaration, section Miscellaneous charges and imputations. On the online declaration, this section appears if you check deductible expenses at the start of step 3. The amount of the reception costs is reported in the box 6EU and the number of people collected in the hut 6EV.
The declaration of the assisted parent
Anyone who helps financially must mention the amounts received on their own income tax return. It must indicate the total amount received in one of the boxes of line 1AO, alimony received, in the Salaries and wages section.
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