Form 140 and the Maternity Tax Deduction: What Self-Employed Workers Shouldn’t Overlook in 2026

The 2026 Tax Agenda campaign keeps bringing reminders that many self-employed workers and small businesses tend to overlook: not every relevant tax update revolves around VAT or the quarterly filing calendar. One topic generating plenty of questions these days is Form 140, the form used to request advance payment of the maternity deduction in personal income tax (IRPF). It directly affects self-employed women with children under three, as well as those who employ staff under the general Social Security regime within their own business.

What’s Behind Form 140 — and Why It Matters Now

The maternity deduction gives working mothers, whether self-employed or salaried, an annual amount off their IRPF for each child under three, with an additional amount available for authorized nursery or early-years childcare costs. What matters most to a self-employed worker isn’t just the amount itself, but how it works: it can be applied directly on the annual tax return, or claimed in advance, month by month, through Form 140 — improving cash flow for those who need it in the day-to-day running of their business rather than waiting for the following year’s tax season.

The detail that tends to trip people up is how the advance payment interacts with the later tax return: anyone receiving the advance needs to remember that the amount already collected can’t be claimed again as a deduction on the IRPF return, and that any change in circumstances — a shift in business activity, registering or deregistering as self-employed, changes in employment status — can affect the right to keep receiving it. The Tax Agency cross-checks this data against Social Security contribution and business activity records, so a later correction is common whenever changes aren’t reported in time.

What This Means for Your Business

If you’re a self-employed mother with young children, or you run a small business with employees in that situation, this translates into some very concrete decisions. First, check whether it makes sense to request the monthly advance rather than waiting for the tax return: for many businesses under cash-flow pressure, receiving that income month by month is worth more than getting it all at once, months later. Second, keep your self-employed registration or employment status up to date, since any temporary deregistration, change of activity, or gap in contributions can interrupt your right to the advance and force you to repay amounts if it isn’t reported. Third, keep the paperwork for nursery costs if you want to claim the additional amount, since the Tax Agency can request supporting documents at any point within the statute-of-limitations period.

For the business employing these workers, the impact is more indirect but no less real: it’s worth checking that the data reported to Social Security and the Tax Agency — registrations, deregistrations, contribution bases — is consistent and filed without delays, because any mismatch between what the company declares and what the employee requests through Form 140 can trigger a request for information that, even if resolved in the taxpayer’s favor, costs time and effort that could have been avoided.

A Broader Reminder for Self-Employed Tax Matters

This specific case illustrates a pattern that keeps showing up across 2026’s tax landscape: deductions and benefits exist, but they require the taxpayer to take the initiative and follow through. The Tax Agency doesn’t apply most of these benefits automatically, and the deadlines for requesting, amending, or justifying them run alongside the rest of the self-employed tax calendar — quarterly VAT, withholdings, installment payments. Losing track of an IRPF item while focused on the quarter’s Form 303 is more common than it sounds, and the cost of a later correction almost always outweighs the effort of checking it in time.

At Zythos Business, we help self-employed workers and small businesses exactly at that intersection between day-to-day tax obligations and the rights that sometimes fall by the wayside: we make sure the deductions you’re entitled to — like the maternity deduction or similar benefits — are applied or claimed in advance correctly, and that the information reported to the Tax Agency and Social Security is consistent across the board. It’s not just about filing forms on time; it’s about making sure every return accurately reflects the real situation of the business and the people behind it.