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Father’s travel costs to visit his son
Travel costs of a father residing in Austria, who regularly picks up his child from the Czech Republic and brings them back, do not constitute an extraordinary burden that can be claimed for tax purposes.
Extraordinary burdens are expenses for living that, under certain conditions, are tax‑deductible. To claim them as an extraordinary burden, the criteria of extraordinariness, inevitability and an impairment of the taxpayer’s economic capacity must be met. Typical extraordinary burdens include, for example, doctors’ and hospital fees, where certain deductibles usually have to be taken into account.
VwGH: no extraordinariness
The Federal Fiscal Court (BFG) initially granted the deduction of kilometre allowance for a father residing in Austria, who regularly picks up his child from the Czech Republic and brings them back, as an extraordinary burden with a deductible excess. In the case at hand, inevitability was deemed to exist for moral reasons. The burden was also considered extraordinary because it was higher than that incurred by the majority of taxpayers with comparable income and wealth.
However, the tax office’s audit department appealed this BFG decision to the Administrative Court (VwGH). The VwGH set aside the contested BFG decision: It is not regarded as extraordinary that a parent lives apart from his child because there is no (longer) marital or marital‑like cohabitation between the parents. The costs arising from the parents’ separation for visiting the children are therefore regularly not regarded as extraordinary. Accordingly, the VwGH cannot recognise any extraordinariness in the distance of 150 km between the child’s residence and that of the contributing parent claimed here.
VwGH: no extraordinariness
The Federal Fiscal Court (BFG) initially granted the deduction of kilometre allowance for a father residing in Austria, who regularly picks up his child from the Czech Republic and brings them back, as an extraordinary burden with a deductible excess. In the case at hand, inevitability was deemed to exist for moral reasons. The burden was also considered extraordinary because it was higher than that incurred by the majority of taxpayers with comparable income and wealth.
However, the tax office’s audit department appealed this BFG decision to the Administrative Court (VwGH). The VwGH set aside the contested BFG decision: It is not regarded as extraordinary that a parent lives apart from his child because there is no (longer) marital or marital‑like cohabitation between the parents. The costs arising from the parents’ separation for visiting the children are therefore regularly not regarded as extraordinary. Accordingly, the VwGH cannot recognise any extraordinariness in the distance of 150 km between the child’s residence and that of the contributing parent claimed here.