Claiming back taxes - what am I missing?

dubliner999

I've worked for the last 4 years and have never claimed a thing back. What are the things that you'd recommend to claim back money from? It's hard to keep up with this online because these things change so much.

I've heard you can claim back money on health insurance (even if your company pays for it) for example but can't find much about it online. It's about 20% I heard so would be a decent amount!

Basically - what's worth looking in to in order to get a bit of money back?

Sesame

Any medical receipts or prescriptions, opticians, yes to employer paid medical insurance. You pay tax on it as its a benefit in kind so should get some of that tax back. You should see it on pay slip. Max you can get back is 20% of 1,000 euro, I think.
If you log onto revenue.ie, there's a list of categories to go through. Also, at the end of it, order a p21 balancing statement. You may have paid too much (or too little) tax over the 4 years and they will check this.

Stanford

You cannot reclaim money on Health Insurance as such relief is now given at source, you can reclaim some medical and dental expenses

Kristopherus

And also be very mindful that the furthest back you can claim for anything is 4 years.

wally1990

Stanford wrote: »

You cannot reclaim money on Health Insurance as such relief is now given at source, you can reclaim some medical and dental expenses

This is true for personal/private plans taking out by the individual since 2013 however if your employers pays it on your behalf you can get tax relief via a tax credit

This is because the employer is receiving the tax relief at source
They pay it on your behalf
You pay BIK tax on the amount

You can apply to the revenue to get 20% on the amount paid as a tax credit capped at €1000 so max credit is €200

namenotavailablE

If you are paying for either a PRSA or income protection (also called Permanent Health Insurance) outside of your payroll (i.e. it isn't appearing on the payslips because you're paying by direct debit through your bank account) you can also include these in your Form 11/12

dubliner999

wally1990 wrote: »

This is true for personal/private plans taking out by the individual since 2013 however if your employers pays it on your behalf you can get tax relief via a tax credit

This is because the employer is receiving the tax relief at source
They pay it on your behalf
You pay BIK tax on the amount

You can apply to the revenue to get 20% on the amount paid as a tax credit capped at €1000 so max credit is €200

Thanks. I still don't fully get it though. My employer pays for my health insurance (it's about 900 a year). As far as I know its a BIK (it's on my payslip each month), can I claim anything back on that?

I don't even fully understand BIK to be honest.

dubliner999

Sesame wrote: »

Any medical receipts or prescriptions, opticians, yes to employer paid medical insurance. You pay tax on it as its a benefit in kind so should get some of that tax back. You should see it on pay slip. Max you can get back is 20% of 1,000 euro, I think.
If you log onto revenue.ie, there's a list of categories to go through. Also, at the end of it, order a p21 balancing statement. You may have paid too much (or too little) tax over the 4 years and they will check this.

I need to look in to this alright. I've been to the doctor, dentist, physio etc a decent bit over the past 4 years. I guess I need to get all those receipts to get the total and then I can claim some of this back?

I have claimed some money back already using Vhi though so I probably can't claim back the full amount.

wally1990

dubliner999 wrote: »

Thanks. I still don't fully get it though. My employer pays for my health insurance (it's about 900 a year). As far as I know its a BIK (it's on my payslip each month), can I claim anything back on that?

I don't even fully understand BIK to be honest.

Yes you can

Get a statement from your payroll dept confirming the amounts paid to the health insurance company on your behalf for the last year


The Revenue will request this to apply the medical insurance tax credit to your Tax credit cert


The letter must be sent to : SWPAYE@Revenue.ie with your pps number

Send this to the revenue

You will get 900*20%=€180 as a tax credit

This will reduce your annual tax by €180

CeilingFly

Probably for you the best option is one of the tax refund services.

They charge a commission on the refund of about 10%

The advantage is they know all the items you can claim for

I can recommend Barry Conlon http://gettaxback.ie/contact-us/

Corca Baiscinn

dubliner999 wrote: »

I need to look in to this alright. I've been to the doctor, dentist, physio etc a decent bit over the past 4 years. I guess I need to get all those receipts to get the total and then I can claim some of this back?

I have claimed some money back already using Vhi though so I probably can't claim back the full amount.

Yes, divide your receipts by year. No, you can't claim back the full amount but if say VHI allowed you to claim €60 from a consultant's bill of €150 then yu can claim the remaining €90. Re dentist, not all treatments are covered but there's a list of what is.

Some jobs also have set expenses that you can claim against, ie an amount allowed for special clothing or equipment and I think you can claim a credit against membership of a Professional Organisation or a Trade Union, also course/exam fees in some cases.

Time for you to get cracking in front of revenue.ie, after you've tipped out your biscuit-tin of recepts of course!

CeilingFly

dubliner999 wrote: »

I need to look in to this alright. I've been to the doctor, dentist, physio etc a decent bit over the past 4 years. I guess I need to get all those receipts to get the total and then I can claim some of this back?

I have claimed some money back already using Vhi though so I probably can't claim back the full amount.

You don't necessarily need actual receipts - a proof of payment will suffice.

What I do is I take a photo of every receipt I think I should keep and email it to a specific receipt gmail address I set up.