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BIRTH RATE

Had a child in Spain in the last 4 years? You might be due a €1,600 tax rebate

Parents in Spain who’ve received paternity and maternity payments since 2014 will now be able to reclaim the income tax on those benefits.

Published: 4 December 2018 08:25 CET

Had a child in Spain in the last 4 years? You might be due a €1,600 tax rebate

Photos:AFP

If you’ve had a child in the last four years and have been receiving Spanish paternity/maternity social security benefits, you will now be able to reclaim the income tax (called IPRF in Spain) you paid on those payments.

Spain’s Inland Revenue Ministry announced on Monday that the claim back form is now available online for parents who had children in the country in 2014 and 2015, allowing them to reclaim and receive the income tax back this very week.

Parents who had a child in 2016 and 2017 will have to wait until January 2019 to have access to the tax rebate. Those who had a child in 2018 need not apply for the rebate as their benefits are already exempt of income tax.

Hacienda Minister María Jesús Montero told journalists that the main information applying parents will have to provide is their children’s date of birth and their bank account details for the money to be wired.

Spain’s tax agency will then take that information and carry out the necessary social security background checks before reimbursing parents.

Mothers will on average be able to claim around €1,600 while fathers will get back roughly €383, based on the amount of time they’ve received the contributions.

Government estimates suggest the new measure will cost the country’s public coffers €1.2 billion.

The news comes after an October 5th Supreme Court ruling which decided that parents in Spain shouldn’t be liable to pay IRPF income tax on maternity and paternity benefits, going against Hacienda’s claims that they should.

Spain recorded its lowest birth rate in 40 years in 2017: 8,4 births for every 1,000 people.

A fertility survey published by Spain’s National Stats Agency on November 28 suggested however that half of all Spaniards want to have two children and a quarter wish to have three.

Why this desire for more offspring hasn’t bumped up the current average of 1,3 children per family in Spain is according to the study largely due to the “financial costs” involved in rearing a child as well as the difficulties in finding a “work vs family life balance”.

How ageing Italy plans to bump up its birth rate in 2020

Photos: AFP

Some 464,000 births were registered in Italy in 2018 – the lowest on record, ever.

With around eight births per 1,000 inhabitants, Italy's birth rate is getting alarming low, according to Francesco Scalone, a demographer at the University of Bologna.

“If Italians don’t start having more babies, you have to wonder what Italy will look like in the next few decades,” Scalone says.

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Declining fertility rates, combined with longer life expectancy, has left Italy with a significantly older population. Its median age is now 45.9 years compared to the EU’s median of 42.8, higher than any other European country except Germany.

Faced with this demographic crisis, Italy’s government has chosen to focus on what it can do to curb its shrinking and ageing population.

More paternity leave after birth

Italy isn’t exactly at the forefront of paternity leave in Europe.

Fully paid leave for new fathers was only introduced in 2012 and set at five days.

This puts Italy at the bottom of the EU table together with Malta and Holland (two days) and far behind Germany and Scandinavian countries offering new dads weeks if not months of paternity leave.

Italy’s Minister for Families Elena Bonetti wants to extend paternity leave to seven days in 2020, not exactly a figure that will encourage Italians to have offspring and one that still falls behind the 10-day minimum the EU is trying to get member countries to abide by.

It’s not due to a lack of will that Italy’s government appears to be offering so little but the burden of paternity leave on state coffers, every extra day of leave costing €10 million, meaning they’ll have to allocate €70 million to the measure by 2020.

More money for nursery fees

Italian parents will receive up to three times as much money for each child under three to cover their nursery or babysitter fees- up from the current €1,000 to €3,000 per year– although this will be dependant on the applicants’ income.

Average nursery fees in Italy are about €500 a month but in big cities this figure can rise to €700.

The “bonus nido” (crèche or nursery bonus) will be divided into three income-dependant bracket – €1,500, €2,500 and €3,000 – and there’s a mention in the draft law of pushing the maximum amount up even higher.

Even more money during the baby’s first year of life

Here’s an extra social grant that mothers who give birth in 2020 can look forward to.

The “universal birth rate” fee will again be dependant on the parents’ income and divided into three brackets: €80, €120 or €160 a month per child under the age of one. Self-employed parents can also benefit from this social grant.

More financial aid during childhood and young adulthood

Italy’s Democratic Party has proposed that from 2021 a “children cheque” of €240 a month is given to parents for each of their children under the age of 18 and €80 for dependent young adult offspring under the age of 26.
This would be available to all families whose yearly income is under €100,000.

For this to happen Italy’s government would have to allocate €9 billion, a good portion of which would be taken from other family allowance funds.

Does giving money to couples increase the birth rate?

The northern region of Bolzano has a considerably higher average rate of children per couple than the rest of Italy – 1.67 compared to 1.3 – a figure that’s higher even than the EU average of 1.6.

Bolzano, which enjoys more autonomy than other regions of Italy when it comes to setting policies, has in recent years been offering double as much money in child benefits to its population to encourage them to have children.

There are also special subsidies for Bolzano parents with low incomes and easier access to family-friendly services such as childcare (in the rest of Italy there are only enough nursery spots for one in every four newborns).

Another policy which is incentivising couples to have children is women’s labour market participation and inclusion.

Up to 73 percent of women in Bolzano aged 20 to 64 work, compared to 53 percent in the rest of Italy.

Employers in the South Tyrol region offer far more flexible working hours and arrangements that help to combine motherhood and career advancement.

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