Sentence No. 1462/2018 issued by the Supreme Court on October 3, 2018, declares that maternity benefits paid by Social Security should be considered as income exempt from I.R.P.F.
This ruling rejects the thesis maintained during the legal proceedings by the State Bar, which argued that such maternity benefits should be considered as income subject to I.R.P.F. since, to the extent that its essential function is to substitute the “normal salary” of the worker during her maternity break, this maternity benefit must be subject to the same IRPF tax treatment as a “normal salary”.
The Supreme Court does not accept this argument and establishes that the maternity benefit is subsumed within the exempt income of I.R.P.F. provided in article 7.h) of the Law of the I.R.P.F., which states that “other public (maternity/paternity) benefits for birth, birth or multiple adoption, adoption, dependent children and orphanage will also be exempt”.
This Supreme Court ruling allows people who have received maternity benefits during the period from 2014 to 2017 (both years inclusive) to request the Tax Agency to claim an IRPF refund. In this way, said persons should recover the difference between what is declared for this concept as income subject to I.R.P.F. and what would have resulted if it had been declared as income exempt from I.R.P.F.
On the other hand, the persons currently receiving the maternity benefit during this financial year 2018 may declare it as exempt income directly in their declaration of I.R.P.F. to present in 2019. They can do so as long as the ruling set forth in this Judgment of the Supreme Court is permanently applied by the Tax Agency and there is no subsequent case-law change in this matter.
Consequently, we are at your disposal to inform you of the details on this matter, and, if applicable, to file your claim for the refund of erroneously paid IRPF with the Tax Agency.
