No car parking tax breaks for civil servants

YOUR editorial of July 17, as well as you front page lead story (‘Civil servants’ €11m bill for free parking’), both repeat the canard that civil servants enjoy a tax exemption on car park spaces that other taxpayers do not.

Revenue guidelines make clear that car parking facilities provided by an employer to employees are not treated as giving rise to a taxable benefit.

Civil servants receive no favoured treatment in this or any other area of the tax code. No taxpayers are charged benefit-in-kind for car spaces: the same rules apply to all.

Dave Coleman

Senior Press Officer

Revenue Commissioners

Dublin Castle