Carers tax liability
Mary Lou McDonald pressed the Taoiseach on Revenue letters to carers warning of tax bills. He said no new tax had been introduced and that the issue was due to real-time reporting of taxable carers’ income, but she insisted the letters must be sorted out.
May I just say that, if Members cannot make their points within their 60 seconds, then they have asked their questions in the wrong forum?
Comment on this
I want to return to the issue of carers, thousands of whom have received letters telling them that they may owe tax. This is a mess of the Government's making. Carers are not tax dodgers. They are people who care for others and who save the State a fortune. Some of them may work part-time just to make sure they can make ends meet because carers experience the cost-of-living crisis just like everyone else. Now, out of the blue, they get this letter from Revenue stating they may in fact have a tax liability and a bill. It is not lost on any of us that this happens at the same time that we discovered that ten of the Taoiseach's own Ministers who had been overpaid had failed to make arrangements to pay back the money they owed.
Carers are in shock. Some of them are very distressed and this matter needs to be cleared up now compassionately, giving carers the respect they are entitled to.
Comment on this
First of all, nothing has changed. Nothing has changed at all in respect of the tax situation governing carers. I think we need to keep everything in perspective and not create unjustified fears because I have checked this with both the Department of Finance and the Department of Social Protection. No new tax has been introduced, but what has happened on a forward-looking basis is the Department of Social Protection is providing Revenue with details of taxable carers' income in real time. About 90% of all carers are either registered already or are not liable for tax. We will obviously do everything we can because the Government, as Deputy McDonald knows, has dramatically increased the threshold for the means test income disregard. We have increased the carers' allowance by over €50.
When you compare that to Northern Ireland-----
Comment on this
But they are after getting a letter telling them they have a tax bill. The Taoiseach should sort that out.