Deductibility of contact lenses in Personal Income Tax (IRPF): limits on professional expenses

The Directorate General of Taxes (DGT) has issued a relevant criterion for self-employed professionals attempting to include personal expenses in their accounting under the guise of expenses related to their economic activity. In this case, the inquiry focused on the possibility of deducting the expense derived from the acquisition of contact lenses.

What the DGT has resolved

The administration has determined that the expense on contact lenses is not deductible for IRPF. For an expense to be admitted as deductible, it must meet strict requirements: it must be linked to the economic activity, be duly justified, and comply with correct temporal imputation and accounting registration.

In the resolution, the DGT points out that those expenses of a personal nature that attempt to be linked to the generation of income are not deductible. The tax authority considers that the correlation between the expense and the activity is not viable, given that the lenses do not possess special characteristics specifically required for professional practice, as their use is also of a personal nature.

What this means for you

This criterion directly affects self-employed professionals. If you use everyday or personal items, such as contact lenses, for your daily life and also for your work, you cannot apply the expense entirely to your economic activity. The regulations of the Personal Income Tax Law (Ley del IRPF) and the Corporate Tax Law (Ley del Impuesto sobre Sociedades) establish that the allocation must be exclusive or, at the very least, it must be possible to demonstrate that the expense is necessary for the generation of income, which is not the case with dual-use items.

What you should do

It is fundamental to distinguish between strictly professional expenses and those that have a personal component. To avoid contingencies with the Administration, it is necessary to ensure that every expense recorded in the accounting complies with the principle of causality. It is recommended to assess each dual-use expense situation and verify if there is a specific technical need that justifies its deductibility, avoiding the inclusion of common-use items that do not present a specialty required by the activity.