The jubelton, the amount with which parents can help their children buy a house tax-free, can already be lowered next year. State Secretary Van Rij of Finance writes to the House of Representatives that the regulation for parents and children will be abolished in practice as a result.
In the coalition agreement, the cabinet has agreed that the ‘donation exemption for own home’, as the jubelton is officially called, will be abolished as of 1 January 2024. It increases inequality because only children of wealthy parents benefit, or so the argument goes. MP Maatoug of GroenLinks wanted to know whether the scheme could not be abolished earlier.
Van Rij writes that complete abolition is not possible before 2024, because it takes time to adapt the systems of the Tax and Customs Administration. However, it is possible to reduce the tax-free amount in the meantime.
Confusion
People are now allowed to make a tax-free donation of more than 106,000 euros to someone between 18 and 40 years old, if the money is used to purchase a home. According to Van Rij, it is theoretically possible to reduce that amount to 1 euro, but according to him this will lead to confusion and questions with the declaration.
Parents are allowed to donate 27,231 euros to a child in any case, without a spending requirement. According to Van Rij, it is therefore the most logical to lower the jubelton to a maximum of that amount. “This means that the exemption for owner-occupied home is de facto abolished in parent-child relationships,” he writes.
However, there will still be the option for people to donate more than 27,000 euros to third parties to buy a house for another year.
The cabinet is still looking at what exactly will happen with the jubelton in 2023. A decision will be made about this shortly.
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