(2022)
What is the tax significance if my child gets married?
Since 2012, there has been a new legal situation regarding child benefit for married children. Now, children over 18 up to the age of 25 who are undergoing vocational training, doing voluntary service, in a transitional period, or bridging a waiting period are taken into account for tax purposes, regardless of their income.
If the child is married and the spouse earns well, the family benefits offices have at least previously refused child benefit to the parents. Entitlement generally only exists until the child gets married. From the date of marriage, it is no longer primarily the parents who are obliged to provide support, but the child's spouse. This was the view of the then "Child Benefit Service Instruction" (DA 31.2.2, BStBl. 2012 I p. 746).
However, to the great delight of countless parents, the Federal Fiscal Court ruled that the marriage of the child does not affect their entitlement to child benefit or tax allowances. Parents are entitled to child benefit for a married child who is in vocational training and under 25 years of age, regardless of the spouse's income or the child's training allowance. It is not necessary for a "typical maintenance situation" to exist, and a shortfall situation is no longer required (BFH ruling of 17.10.2013, III R 22/13, BStBl. 2014 II p. 257).
