France : un Sénégal piégé par le Code de la famille
A Senegalese man residing in France lost a tax dispute after the French courts applied Senegalese family law to his marital status. According to Les Échos, which reported the story, MBA, who married in Senegal on December 20, 1998, without a prenuptial agreement, believed he could file a joint tax return with his wife, who remained in Senegal, in order to reduce his taxes for the 2019 tax year.
Convinced, as is commonly believed, that he was married under the community property regime, he encountered difficulties with Senegalese law. When his marriage was registered at the French Consulate in Dakar in 2016, no choice regarding the matrimonial property regime was specified. However, in a ruling issued on May 18, 2016, the Paris Administrative Court of Appeal reiterated that in Senegal, "in the absence of an explicit choice, the default regime is separate property." Since his wife lived in Senegal while he resided in France, the court considered that the couple did not live under the same roof. Consequently, the tax authorities treated him "as a single person."
The newspaper adds that the man also claimed a family quotient of seven shares for his six children living in Senegal, as well as a tax credit of 6,000 euros (nearly 4 million CFA francs) for childcare expenses. However, he only provided three receipts for money transfers made several years after the period in question: "a transfer of 50 euros (approximately 32,500 CFA francs)" in October 2022, and two payments of 49.99 euros and 80.22 euros, totaling just over 85,000 CFA francs, at the beginning of 2026.
The court ruled that this evidence did not demonstrate that her family was effectively being cared for in 2019. It also noted that five of the six children were already older than the age qualifying for the childcare tax credit. Her appeal was therefore dismissed.
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