Crisis and divorce: how to modify the agreement
The difficulties faced by many couples who have been separated or divorced due to the economic crisis have forced to change the rules of the game as far as the children's pension is concerned and many parents have been forced to legally request a reduction in the amount of the maintenance allowance agreed upon for the children in common.
Spain has gone from registering 41,621 divorce cases in 2002 to 104,262 in 2012, which has made it the fourth country in the European Union in number of divorces behind Germany, the United Kingdom and France. Only in the third quarter of 2014, the number of demands grew by 12.5% according to the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ).
How to modify what was agreed in the divorce
Assuming the consequences of divorce is even more difficult in times of crisis, although they have been agreed beforehand. Only in Catalonia, the demands to modify the divorce sentences grew around 17% during 2013, according to sector data. Currently, the legislation allows to modify the previously agreed measures, but there are always minimums:
1. Legal reduction of alimony. The legal minimum can be reached to cover a vital minimum set at 180 euros per child. However, you can never ask for the termination of this pension and in the case that the assigned pension is not passed, the immediate consequence would be the seizure of the assets.
2. Reduction of the compensation pension. The compensation pensions for one of the spouses are intended to cover the economic imbalance that causes the break. Legally, one can stop paying the spouse if the one who must pay loses his job and in such a way that the economic imbalance with the former partner has been extinguished. In this case you can ask the judge to review the divorce decree and even ask for it to be deleted.
The fiscal consequences of the agreed conditions
From the fiscal point of view, an improvement in the taxation of divorce can be obtained. In fact, the tax reform of the IRPF includes important new features such as improving the taxation of the compensation that one spouse pays to another for the work of the household: a concept that until now was taxed as a work income in the tax return.
A planning of divorce cases can save costs in the payment of compensation as in the division of common property. It must be borne in mind that the fiscal invoice consists of many components in the matter of taxes such as the IRPF, the tax on capital transfers, the tax on legal acts documented, on donations or the municipal capital gain.
Marisol New
