Latvia's tax office requires two applications to transfer parent's medical expense balance

People in Latvia who want to recover personal income tax overpaid in connection with a retired parent's medical costs may face extra paperwork. The State Revenue Service (VID), which administers taxes in the country, says the unused balance of deductible expenses is not moved automatically to a child's tax return. The agency states that it currently has no plans to change this procedure.

The reader's experience

Lolita, a reader of the LA.LV news portal, included her mother's medical receipts when she filed her annual income tax return for 2025. She wanted to use this option because pensioners cannot always make full use of the tax refund that deductible expenses provide. Since 1 January 2025, the tax-free minimum for pensioners has been 1,000 euros a month, or 12,000 euros a year.

VID had advised her to include the medical expenses of retired parents or grandparents in the returns of their children or grandchildren. While following the processing of her return, Lolita noticed that the unused expense balance was not carried over to her return automatically. She said she had not seen guidance on what to do with expenses attributable to later tax years.

What VID requires

After she contacted the agency again, VID asked for two free-form applications. The daughter's application must state that she is taking over her mother's balances of deductible expenses. The mother's must ask for them to be transferred to the daughter's return, giving her name, surname and personal identity number. Both must specify the period (year) and amount to be transferred. They can be submitted through VID's electronic declaration system.

VID's explanation

The agency says it cannot decide on its own initiative to move balances, because the taxpayer has the right to decide in whose return the expenses are used. Consent is therefore needed from both the person handing over the balance and the person receiving it, even for close relatives.

VID stresses that information on its website and individual consultations are available, where a specialist reviews the specific client's data.