deduct general family expenses to the IRS

It’s time again to close last year’s tax bills and, with them, come the alerts to validate and confirm all the invoices you have registered on the E-Fatura portal – with special attention to health, education, real estate expenses. and general family expenses.

Leaving everything organized on the electronic invoices portal is, in addition to an obligation, an opportunity that the State gives you every year to benefit from some tax aid, as a reward for having asked to insert the Tax Identification Number (NIF) in the invoices received throughout the year.

In reality, deductions from IRS collection – that’s what the tax aid that the State gives us for certain expenses is called – serve to balance our quality of life and reduce the weight that essential expenses had on our annual budget , which was once so massacred with family overheads.

For cataloging purposes, Finance divides our expenses into several categories, and for each category they define a specific tax benefit, namely.

General family expenses are also deductible by the IRS

General family expenses are considered all those that, not falling into any of the categories that we will see below, concern the life of the family.

This category includes, among others, expenses with:

• Supermarket;
• clothing and footwear;
• Light;
• Gas;
• Telecommunications;
• Water;
• Fuels;
• Works at home (as long as it is leased);
• Home appliances.

These expenses can be deducted by 35%, up to a maximum of 250 euros per person (that is, couples can deduct up to 500 euros).

Other expenses that you can deduct from the IRS

Health Expenses

In the 2022 tax year (to be delivered in 2023) you will be able to deduct from the IRS 15% of everything you have spent on health goods and services exempt from VAT or taxed at the reduced rate, as well as health insurance premiums (provided that only cover the health risk).

Expenses with health goods and services taxed at the normal rate (23%) can also be deducted, provided they are accompanied by a medical prescription.

Before you start collecting invoices, however, keep in mind that the deduction is capped at €1,000.

Education expenses

From crèches, kindergartens, nurseries, schools, teaching establishments and other educational services, including textbooks and school books and meals in canteens, 30% of all expenses related to the lives of students can be deducted in the IRS up to a maximum of 800 euros per year.

In this case, it is convenient to associate the student’s NIF with the expenses – and then validate them in his E-Fatura account.

Please also note that charges for renting real estate for a displaced student are deductible up to a limit of 300 euros per year. The deduction applies when the student is under 25 years old and the rented property (or part of it) is more than 50 kilometers from the household’s permanent residence.

Thus, households that reach the limit of 800 euros of deduction for education expenses can see this limit increased by 200 euros, when the difference corresponds to rents. In these cases, the overall limit on education and professional training expenses becomes a thousand euros.

In addition, families with students attending educational establishments in the interior or in the Autonomous Regions benefit from a increase by 10 percentage points of the amount supported with education expenses up to a maximum ceiling of one thousand euros.

real estate expenses

These are not included in general family expenses because they have different deduction percentages and maximum values ​​– not to mention specific regimes (for example, families renting a house in the interior of the country are entitled to a higher maximum deduction value than those who live on the coast).

Housing expenses include interest on loans, with a 15% deduction of up to €296 (only for credit agreements entered into by December 31, 2011), rents (15% deduction of up to €502) and even with real estate rehabilitation (30% up to €500).

expenses with homes

Home care and home support are also excluded from general and family expenses, which is good because they are deducted separately (25% up to €403.75) and can be declared not only by the person himself, but also by direct family members, as long as they do not have earnings above the minimum wage.

expenses with ascendants

Another category that alleviates general and family expenses: for each dependent parent whose income does not exceed the minimum wage, you can deduct €635 (the value drops to €525 from two dependents).

Expenses with pension funds and PPRs

It is with the future in mind that the State allows us to deduct 20% of everything we invest in these products, up to a maximum of €400 (up to 35 years), €350 (between 35 and 50) or €300 (after 50 years).

Expenses with Retirement Certificates

The official name of this benefit is Public Capitalization Scheme, and the money invested can be deducted by 20% up to €400 (up to age 35) or €350 (after age 35).

Expenses with people with disabilities

These are expenses that many families appreciate being able to deduct separately from general household expenses. For ascendants or dependents with a disability greater than 60%, you can deduct four times the IAS (1900€) for yourself and two and a half times the IAS (1187.50€) for each person you have as a dependent; 30% of everything spent on education and rehabilitation and 25% of life insurance that safeguard the risk of death, disability or old-age retirement, and 25% of expenses with nursing homes with a limit of €403.75.

Note: Since you are deducting expenses for the fiscal year 2022, the IAS amount to be considered is €475. It should be remembered that, in accordance with Law No. 55-A/2010, until the IAS amount reaches the minimum wage in 2010 (€475 – which will already happen in 2023), deductions from for people with disabilities are indexed to the latter value.

VAT expenses

It is a kind of supplement to general family expenses and is very welcome in many Portuguese households: in addition to the general and family expenses that you deduct at the IRS, you can also deduct 15% of VAT on expenses with catering and accommodation, gyms, veterinarians, hairdressers and aesthetics, workshops, public transport passes. The limit is only 250 euros, per household, but it is already a good addition to the usual general and family expenses.

All these expenses must be declared with their associated NIF and validated on the E-Fatura portal.