When do you become fiscal partners and what should you pay attention to? Being fiscal partners mostly has benefits, but it can also have some cons. What are the things you should keep in mind when you do your income tax return together?
When do you become fiscal partners?
You become fiscal partners when you’re married or when you have a registered partnership with someone. You also become fiscal partners when you’re not married, but living together and when you meet certain requirements. For instance when you bought a house with someone and you’re living together in that house. But also when you’re both older than 18 years old and you have a notarial cohabitation agreement. Or you’re living together and you have a child together. Once you meet these requirements and you’re fiscal partners, it’s impossible not to be fiscal partners.
Of course it can occur that you marry your partner during the year. In that case you’re fiscal partners from that moment on. But you can also choose to be fiscal partners for that whole year. You can also have multiple fiscal partners in one year, but not at the same time. For instance when you got divorced and you buy a house with someone in which you live together later that same year. In that case you can choose to be fiscal partners with one of these people for the whole year.
Pros and cons of fiscal partnership
Fiscal partnership has several benefits for your income tax return. The main ones are:
- You’re allowed to split the deduction at will in your declaration. This way the partner that made the most money can deduct the costs and you’ll get a bigger tax advantage.
- You might have more or higher tax deductions.
- You pay less wealth tax over your private assets.
There are also a couple of cons when you file your income tax return as fiscal partners. The most common one is the increase of threshold amounts. This increase is dependent on the income of both fiscal partners combined. So the threshold amount you have to meet in order to make use of a certain deduction might be higher because you and your partner have a higher combined income. That means you could miss out on a certain deduction.
