Problem with medical tax claim

Don17

Hi,

I have a large medical tax relief claim for 2009 - 2K which I spent on a chiropracter.
The tax office have been in touch saying that while there is no problem claiming from a chiropracter I need a referral letter from my GP which I do not have.
I know it states on the tax form that they are payable only with referal letters from a gp however,

Why should I give my GP 60 euro for a referral whan all theses alternative medicines and phsiotherapists which all fall under the same section within the tax form are walk in and do not require a referral from a GP or any other source.

Anyway my GP does not refer to chiropracter and wouldn't give me a letter when I rang him for a backdated leter.
The chiropracter I attend is also a medical Dr.

Any suggestions

Thanks.

NCG

Because Chartered Physiotherapists are mainstream medical providers and no referral is required, I presume they are deemed competent to determine the level of treatment required. As you get into greyer areas of medicine I suppose the GP is being used to determine the medical need. For example, otherwise you could just be getting recreational services (eg stress massage) and claiming tax relief on it. Anyway, I don't want to get into where chiropractors fall on this scale or the rights or wrongs of it.....

Wouldn't the most practical solution be to get the chiropractor to sort it out and get you a referral from a different GP? After all (s)he was the only one to profit from it.

nompere

If you read the notes relating to the Med 1 - http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/it/leaflets/it6.html - you will find that just about any treatments not provided by a practitioner (doctors and dentists, generally) must follow a referral. That applies, amongst other things, to physiotherapy. There is a more formal definition of practitioner in the notes.

The €60 is the price you pay for getting tax relief on €2,000.

It's also the reassurance Revenue want; to know that your GP reckoned you needed the treatment as opposed to you making that decision for yourself.

Teej

The treatment must be prescriped by a practioner. If your chiropractor is a registered MD, there is nothing in the legislation preventing him from prescriping his own services. However it is common for chiropractors in Ireland to have trained oversees, and they may not be eligible to register as MDs in Ireland even if fully qualified abroad