Workers to get €700m tax back

Workers are expected to claw back €700m this year in overpaid tax from the Revenue Commissioners.

During the past two years, the taxman has given back an estimated €1bn to people who made claims for overpaid taxes.

In the first six months of 2008, €400m was returned.

The main claims were for medical expenses, as well as a lesser amount for trade union subscriptions and bin charges, which are tax deductible.

Úna Maguire, a senior tax manager with the Irish Taxation Institute (ITI), said more people were taking time to check what they could claim back from Revenue.

“The scale of the refunds is growing consistently which is a real plus,” she said. “When the Irish Taxation Institute highlighted the extent of unclaimed reliefs, we did see a response, as it evidenced in these figures. Revenue has initiated improvements an awareness.”

Workers have become more aware of what they can claim due to awareness advertising campaigns launched by the Revenue and that tax funds can now be claimed online.

People who feel they have paid too much to the taxman can go onto to www.revenue.ie to requested a balancing statement and in turn file over the internet for a refund.

It is important for people to keep records on visits to doctors and hospitals.

Most doctors now have patients on their computer system and its easy to request a statement on medical expenditure.

Other items which can be claimed for are mortgage relief, tuition fees and certain age allowances.

Over payments given back to workers in June this year came to €32m, in May €50m was turned. The highest so far was in April when €91m was given back by the Revenue, the highest amount ever paid back in one month.

This year’s April figures compares to last year’s figure of €62m, which shows that the number of people claiming their tax back is increasing month on month.

This year alone more than 520,000 over-payments made by Revenue to the taxpayers.

The Irish Taxation Institute, in its pre-Budget submission, say with falling tax revenue the Government is facing difficult decisions on Budget day.

Article courtesy of The Evening Echo newspaper