Cohabitating couples & Tax

Peregrinus

Colser wrote: »

If we can't avail of the benefits of being married then we shouldn't be penalised on for cohabiting when making a claim if sick etc.It's totally unfair to be considered as a couple for certain reasons and not for others.I'm surprised someone hasn't challenged this legally as so many couples are together years but haven't signed that piece of paper.

For tax purposes, the question is whether you are obliged to support your partner, share your assets with them. In general, how you choose to spend your money is your own affair; it doesn't affect your tax liability. So choosing to support your partner is ignored; the tax system only cares if you accept a continuing obligation to support your partner.

Whereas for social welfare, the important question is not whether your partner is obliged to support you, but whether they actually do. Means-based tests look at your actual means and circumstances, and don't really ask how or why those are your means and circumstances. So if you're actually pooling your financial resources with another person, sharing housing costs, sharing groceries, etc, this does affect your means and your needs (and theirs), and it is taken into account.

Is it anomalous? Possibly. Does it work out badly for cohabiting couples? It tends to, yes. But, if it does, the remedy is in their own hands; they can marry. And dimension to this discussion which is distinctly lacking is any consideration of why cohabiting couples don't marry. Marriage is the mechanism by which they can engage the status and treatment that they want. So why don't they want to marry? And, given that they don't, why do they think they should be treated by the rest of the world as if they had married?

Glass fused light

Colser wrote: »

A cohabiting couple can't take advantage of tax credits associated with marriage yet if either of them are out sick from work the other partners earnings are taken into consideration re. sick benefit..very unfair situation imo.Lots of other examples also eg next of kin,assets in the event of a death etc.

The state has provided a solution to these inequities.

https://www.hse.ie/eng/births-deaths-and-marriages/how-to-get-married-in-ireland/

Glass fused light

Colser wrote: »

If we can't avail of the benefits of being married then we shouldn't be penalised on for cohabiting when making a claim if sick etc.It's totally unfair to be considered as a couple for certain reasons and not for others.I'm surprised someone hasn't challenged this legally as so many couples are together years but haven't signed that piece of paper.

Here is where you start to object to a piece of paper

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/government_in_ireland/elections_and_referenda/referenda/constitutional_referendum_in_ireland.html

MayoSalmon

MayoSalmon wrote: »

I understand all that however my question is how marriage will somehow be eroded if other instruments were to be used for co-habiting couples for tax purposes.

Because if you give another option that has the same benefits of marriage without the same level of commitment then of course it will erode marriage. Tax benefits etc are designed to be given to couples who are together forever with the only way out being a very long and difficult procedure of divorce (which should be long and difficult). Have a short term, easy to get out of way to share tax would madness and go totally against the who ethos of why these tax benefits were brought in.

The simple fact is a fairly small number of people have some strange issue with marriage and what to have its benefits without doing it and really its tough luck, either stick to some misguided principle and don't get the advantages or just get married its a fairly simple procedure after all.

Mrs OBumble

Peregrinus wrote: »

. So if you're actually pooling your financial resources with another person, sharing housing costs, sharing groceries, etc, this does affect your means and your needs (and theirs), and it is taken into account.
.....
? And, given that they don't, why do they think they should be treated by the rest of the world as if they had married?

Rubbish.

Single people are not means tested on their housemates income. Where as cohabitants are.

Peregrinus

That's right. Because a conjugal couple do in fact share grocery bills, share holidays, and generally share expenses and income in a much more complete way than singletons who simply live in the same house tend to do.

Glass fused light

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Rubbish.

Single people are not means tested on their housemates income. Where as cohabitants are.

Single people are not pooling financial resources with their housemates.
They'd split costs for agreed outlay but their income remains theirs to dispose of as they please.
The individuals has no intentions of entering a personal relationship with their housemate and are not seeking the state to recognise any relationship. Nor are they subject to the current legistation which allows an unmarried dependent partner to seek recognition of the relationship and gain access to the financial resources of a partner through the courts

Squatter

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Rubbish. Single people are not means tested on their housemates income.

Whereas cohabitants are.

Ah, but unless one is living in a hippy commune or somesuch it's considered very unlikely by officialdom that housemates will be pooling their incomes and sharing them equally with everyone else in the house.

Whereas it is assumed that cohabiting couples will be willing to share more than merely their fluids with one another.


Anyway moaning about the injustice of it in this forum isn't likely to achieve too much. So why not contact your local TDs and get them on the job!