Joint or individual declaration? The question is repeated every year when completing the income statement process. Although the situation will depend on the circumstances of each one, there are some scenarios in which it is better to opt for the joint.
To access the joint declaration you have to be a family unit. Although marriages are, in the eyes of the Treasury, unmarried couples are not. If they have children, however, one of them can include them in their rent if the situation arises.
Here are some situations where it pays off.
"In the case of married couples, it is usually preferable to make a joint declaration when one of the two spouses does not work, so they do not receive income. On the other hand, if both spouses have income, then it is usually preferable to make individual declarations," says Benjamí Anglés, expert in Tax Law from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC).
Bankinter advisers emphasize that the option is interesting for single-parent families with children without income, couples in which one member does not receive income or is less than 3,400 euros.
Regarding assumptions, from the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) they point out that "if you have children under the age of 25 who live with you and who do not obtain income that exceeds 8,000 euros per year, you can apply family minimums for descendants in the income tax return, but you will not be able to if those children file a personal income tax return and declare an income for all items greater than 1,800 euros. Thus, "even if your child does not have the obligation to declare, he can do so if he returns it: in this case, it is advisable to do the math and check if the amount that you are returned compensates for the loss of the minimum per descendant before presenting the declarations".
Another assumption is if "during 2022 you have transferred shares with losses while your spouse has transferred different shares with benefit, it may be interesting to analyze the possibility of jointly taxing", they point out from the Registry of Tax Advisory Economists (REAF), a body specialized in Tax advice from the General Council of Economists of Spain.
In a joint declaration, the personal minimum -the part of the income that is not taxed as it is used to satisfy basic personal and family needs- is 5,550 euros, regardless of the members of the family unit. In addition, special reductions of 3,400 euros are applied in families with two spouses and 2,150 in single-parent families. In total, you opt for a maximum of 8,950 euros. "While doing it separately, the reduction is 11,100 euros," alert from Bankinter.
It must be taken into account that the joint declaration penalizes on some fronts. For example, if you have a mortgage and opt for a deduction of 9,040 euros per year for the payment of installments, if it is done separately, each member of the marriage can deduct them, for a total of 18,080 euros. In the joint, only the 9,040 euros limit is applied.
When accessing the draft, in the "Identifying data" step, the spouse can be included or not, by selecting or not in the upper part that the program calculates only the individual declaration of the taxpayer. In this way, calculations can be made with both scenarios to see the final result and present the statement that pays the most. Opting for the joint return does not obligate you to do so in subsequent years.
To include the spouse in the declaration, you must provide your reference number or Cl@ve PIN. The declaration is presented in the autonomy where the member of the family unit with the highest taxable base is, remember the economists.
