BFH: idle parent cannot block BEA allowance transfer

A separated parent who neither pays for childcare nor looks after the child cannot block the BEA allowance transfer.Bundesfinanzhof In a judgment of 18 June 2026 (III R 2/24, ECLI:DE:BFH:2026:U.180626.IIIR2.24.0), the Bundesfinanzhof (BFH) III. Senat held that objection to transferring the Freibetrag für den Betreuungs- und Erziehungs- oder Ausbildungsbedarf (BEA-Freibetrag) under § 32 Absatz 6 Satz 9 Einkommensteuergesetz (EStG) fails where the objecting parent bears no childcare costs and performs no care duties himself, even if third parties — here the grandparents — provided extensive careBundesfinanzhof. The court vacated the Finanzgericht Rheinland-Pfalz judgment of 26 January 2023 (6 K 1165/21)Bundesfinanzhof and granted the mother's claim outrightBundesfinanzhof.

For 2019 each parent deducts a Kinderfreibetrag of 2,490 EUR and a BEA-Freibetrag of 1,320 EUR per child, regardless of actual spending or care model. Where the parents do not meet the joint-assessment conditions of § 26 Absatz 1 Satz 1 EStG, the BEA share of the parent with whom the minor child is not registered transfers to the other parent on application (§ 32 Absatz 6 Satz 8 EStG)Bundesfinanzhof — unless objected to because the non-registered parent bears childcare costs or regularly cares for the child to more than an insignificant extent (§ 32 Absatz 6 Satz 9 EStG)Bundesfinanzhof.

Here the divorced parents shared custody but both daughters were registered only with the mother; the father paid maintenance, had cut back personal contact since 2015, and in 2019 one daughter accompanied him to three training sessions he coached — isolated, occasion-based contacts, not regular care. The daughters spent 159 days with the father's parents in their flat in the same two-family house, without any arrangement with the father and without access to his own flat. The Finanzgericht had attributed the grandparents' care to the father given the proximity and upheld his objection.

The BFH rejected that attribution.Bundesfinanzhof The right to object compensates reduced ability to pay caused by care duties claiming the taxpayer's labour or funds — the constitutional equation of monetary cost with unpaid personal care. A parent who leaves it to the other parent to cover the care need, whether by her own care or by organising third-party care, is not in that position. Care by third parties cannot be attributed where it happens without the objecting parent's involvement, even if the child stays near him or his own parents provide it.Bundesfinanzhof The 2017 case law on regular care under the residence model presupposes the objecting parent provides some care at all, which was missing here; nor can a polarised family situation justify a teleological reduction, since contested separations are exactly what the objection right was written for. The father's share of the property's running costs was equally unrelated to childcare, and no maintenance calculation had included third-party care costs.

The matter was ready for decision: the mother's 2019 assessment takes the father's BEA shares of 2 × 1,320 EUR additionally, so both children's subsistence is freed through allowances rather than Kindergeld, with a further 1,194 EUR Kindergeld claim added back to the computed tax.

Legal basis: § 32 Absatz 6 Satz 8 and 9 EStG (2019 version)Bundesfinanzhof; BFH judgment III R 2/24 of 18 June 2026, vacating Finanzgericht Rheinland-Pfalz 6 K 1165/21 of 26 January 2023.