health contribution for jointly assessed

tanyabond

When a couple is jointly assessed is health contribution paid on the basis of total income being over 26000, or is this sum doubled because there are two people involved?

namenotavailablE

Each person is assessed on their own individual income so it's payable by a person only if his/her income exceeds €26000. In a joint assessment situation, it could mean that one/both/neither are liable.
Just to clarify as well, the Health Contribution does not apply in 2011.

tanyabond

Thank you so much for your help! That's exactly the way I thought it was - meaning each persons income is looked at individually though jointly assessed.
Is there any official document that actually states it as such? My husband is convinced that since we are jointly assessed "individual" in this phrase http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/it/leaflets/it1.html#section19 refers to couple (don't ask me...). What's worse, our accountant (who is a friend) also says to him that 26000 is a threshold for our combined income...

tanyabond

sorry, there's no word individual in this link, but what I mean is that it (although not clearly) refers to one person, whilst my husband is convinced that it refers to a couple when they are jointly assessed. Yet a clear information of the way it is done for jointly assessed couples is nowhere to be found....

Legend100

"jointly assessed" refers to income tax

Heath contribution is governed by social welfare legislation which, even though collected by Revenue, will not be outlined in the Revenue guidelines.

The health contribution is taxed on an individual basis so each spouse only pays when they are over 26K themselves.

for guidance on rates, see welfare.ie