Revenue Commissioners launch helpline for pensioners

A special Revenue phoneline will be made available between 9.30am and 4.30pm tomorrow for people with concerns about the tax they need to pay on pensions.

Details of the 1890 numbers are contained in the letters sent to the pensioners affected and are as follows:

* Dublin City and County: 1890-333 425

* Cavan, Donegal, Galway, Leitrim, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo and Westmeath: 1890- 777 425

* Clare, Cork, Kerry and Limerick: 1890-222 425

* Carlow, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Meath, Tipperary, Waterford, Wexford and Wicklow: 1890-444 425

Pensioners with concerns are also being advised to contact the Citizens Information Service on 0761 07 4000, or www.citizensinformation.ie.

Yesterday, 115,000 people aged over 65 learned that they will have to pay additional tax this year after their credits were miscalculated.

The liability for people in receipt of two pensions that exceed a certain threshold could be as high as €4,400 for a single person and €8,800 for a couple.

Age Action Ireland and the Senior Citizens Parliament have criticised the move.

The discrepancy emerged after the Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Social Protection cross-checked records.

Revenue spokesperson Declan Rigney could not rule out the prospect of the charges being backdated.

"It's all at the moment in 2012 about getting that resolved," he said.

"In some cases, the amount involved could be as small as less than a euro a week.

"The economics of trying to collect this have to be borne in mind in all of this,

"We want to target our resources where the risk is the greatest, as with all of our programmes, so we have a lot of analysis to do on it."