Some Irish Taxation Tips...

Quick Note to visitors from BizPlus.ie - please click here for our home page. The first thing to do is identify the correct tax year for which you are looking to claim relief. The tax year is now the same as a calendar year; running from January to December. Prior to 1st January 2002, the tax year ran from April to April (2001 was a short tax year from April to December). So things are going to get a lot simpler from 2002. However, it is still our basic building block - identify the tax year, then can start applying the correct rates, bands, credits and reliefs to your income.

Some examples: The 10th January 1999 is part of the tax year 1998/1999 The 15th June 1999 is part of the tax year 1999/2000 The 2nd February 2000 is also part of the tax year 1999/2000 The 5th August 2001 is part of the "short" tax year 2001 The 10th January 2002 is part of the tax year 2002 The 5th May 2004 is part of the tax year 2004 Claiming Income Tax Relief There are three mechanisms for giving tax relief: Through your tax credits. This works as follows:- You and your employer will receive your notice of tax credits every year. You realise the notice omits some credits which you are entitled to. You contact your local tax office. They send you out a form where you apply for any new credits you wish to claim. The Tax Office gets your request and if you are entitled to the extra credits they will issue you and your employer with your revised notice of tax credits. NB* As soon as your employer receives your new notice of tax credits, you will get some of the tax benefit taken into account in your next pay-packet. Basically, you have overpaid tax and now you are getting a refund, which will depend how far into the tax year we are. Employers are obliged to pay you any refund you are due in your next pay-packet. After the end of the tax year, you are then obliged to complete a tax return. By making a tax-return. In this situation the tax year has ended. For whatever reason, you forgot to claim certain credits or reliefs that were due to you during the tax year. You claim by making a tax return and the Revenue will refund any tax due to you. Tax relief can now occur "at source". The following are granted at source: Tax relief for medical insurance such as VHI payments. From 6 April 2001, your fee to the VHI will be automatically reduced by the tax relief. Tax relief for mortgage interest. From 1 January 2002, the amount you pay your mortgage lender will be reduced automatically by the tax relief. Now we will start the tips.

The first thing to do is to check you are claiming all of your tax credits and allowances. You will find most of the credits and allowances for the tax years on this site as follows: 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 and 2000/2001 1998/1999

Simply scroll down the list and see if there are any credits or allowances you are not claiming that you may be entitled to. Then ring up your local tax office to discuss the matter and get the forms if they say you could be entitled to any additional credits or allowances.

The next thing to do is to see if there are any "reliefs" you may be entitled to.

The following are some of the main reliefs: pension relief mortgage interest relief rent relief medical expenses relief medical insurance relief permanent health insurance waste charges tuition fees dental insurance sports stars relief You will find details of the relief within each section. If you have any queries, then contact your local tax office. Medical expenses are the only relief which cannot be claimed during the tax year. An exception to this exception(!) concerns nursing home expenses, which can be given through a persons notice of tax credits. To repeat again; if a relief can be granted through the notice of tax credits, then the tax benefit can be received during the tax year.

This consists of non-cash benefits given by your employer to you. For example, your employer buys you a car; then you have received a non-cash benefit on which you are liable to pay income tax. The Minister has signaled that BIKs WILL be liable to PRSI from the start of 2004; thus the "tip" is about to be annulled, as the tip was the fact that PRSI did not apply to BIKs. In fact, the whole area has been tightened up with the Revenue looking at a whole list of BIKs which will now have to be accounted for.

Having said that, the following should be noted: Certain Benefits-in-Kind are exempt from tax. These include: Monthly or Annual travel passes provided free of charge to employees Creche facilities provided free of charge to employees Please visit our benefit-in-kind section by clicking here.

There are a number of tax based investments and breaks which you may want to consider. You will find full details of these in our tax breaks section.

If there is anything that you do not fully understand, then do not hesitate to contact your local tax office. This could be the best tip given here. Consider eMail as a method of communication.

This sounds obvious - but if you file every piece of tax related documentation, this will help you organise your tax affairs. This could lead to you getting your tax refund a lot faster.