Travel expenses for visiting a child are not considered an extraordinary burden according to the Supreme Administrative Court.

The requirements for tax deductibility as an extraordinary expense are known to be exceptionality, unavoidability, and impairment of economic capacity. The Supreme Administrative Court (VwGH) (File reference Ro 2021/13/0018 of 26 March 2025) had to deal with the circumstances where a father wanted to claim the (very high) travel expenses for collecting his child, who lived abroad with the mother, as an extraordinary expense.

While the tax office denied the deduction, the Federal Fiscal Court (BFG) ruled that the travel expenses for picking up and returning the son, who lives with his mother in the Czech Republic, can be recognised as an exceptional burden (with a deductible excess). This was partly due to the fact that maintaining contact and providing care by the parents or a parent are considered intrinsic services to the child, which do not count as statutory maintenance. Had this been the case, the associated costs would not have been deductible as an exceptional burden, as they are already covered by the maintenance allowance.

The Supreme Administrative Court (VwGH) reached a different decision and denied the deductibility as an extraordinary expense, as the extraordinary nature of the expense was lacking in the specific case. It is not to be considered extraordinary that a parent lives separately from their child because there is no longer a marital or quasi-marital partnership between the parents. The costs incurred for visiting the child, arising from the separation of the parents, are therefore generally not to be considered extraordinary – even if the distance between the place of residence of the child and the mother on the one hand, and the father on the other, is 150 km.

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