Annual Taxsaver Bus Rail leap card Coronavirus Covid 19 refund for not used ticket

bakubaku1 · 23-03-2020 08:42AM #1

Hi All

Can anybody advise how to go around and cancell my yearly taxsaver ticket please,

I'm not using ticket and looks like will not until.May 20 as asked to.work from home by employer so Taxsaver.ie only taking free.monay from my account at pay day.

How I can stop monthyl charge until I'm or we all who use annually bus train tickets back working after Covid ?

whomitconcerns · 23-03-2020 08:56AM

Well that's something you can look into in a month or two. Probably not important to deal with that right now, most likely they'll extend them or refund a portion.

cdeb · 23-03-2020 09:00AM

Public transport is still running, so I don't think that anything outside normal cancellation would be operating.

Ask your finance department - or whoever arranged the ticket for you originally about cancelling; they can cancel with effect from 1st April, but there's a charge of two months - so if you have five months left, you will get three months back. (This is because the annual ticket includes two free months compared to a monthly ticket, so they can't refund a free month)

When all goes back to normal, you will have to buy a new ticket again - so if this all blows over in 6 weeks (probably unlikely), then you will end up slightly out of pocket.

Sarn · 23-03-2020 09:01AM

Also, they don’t refund two months of your ticket as you pay for 10 months and get two months “free”. If you’ll need to get another ticket once everything goes back to normal it might not be worth your while cancelling.

cdeb · 23-03-2020 09:02AM

It's two months, not three, btw.

Sarn · 23-03-2020 09:03AM

cdeb wrote: »

It's two months, not three, btw.

Just realised and edited.

Jem72 · 24-03-2020 09:11AM

I bought a monthly season ticket for March for cash (E437) as I just started a new job and they didn't have taxsaver set up yet. I sent them an enquiry last week about getting a refund. It took several days to get a response - understandable as they are a bit busy, and they said they'd refund the unused portion of it if I returned the ticket. It's a bit late now since there will only be a week left on it by the time they receive it but arguing over a hundred quid that you would have spent anyway is hardly a priority right now.

I wouldn't bother returning an annual TaxSaver just yet. There is a reasonably high chance that things will be returning to normal by the time two months have elapsed. And if things are still shut down in two months time, we'll probably all have bigger problems.

Collie D · 27-03-2020 03:59PM

I got an email from my ticket provider this week saying they’re trying to negotiate a pause on annual tickets.

fixxation · 31-03-2020 05:40PM

Does anyone know if the monthly Taxsaver tickets are paid in advance or arrears?

I've been working from home (like many others) for the last couple weeks, and I wrote my finance dept two weeks ago advising that they cancel the monthly ticket, as I don't need it at present. Got my payslip today and it has a Taxsaver charge on it of 145, which they are claiming is for March... I always thought the Taxsaver tickets were paid for in advance?

cdeb · 31-03-2020 06:00PM

The amount your company pays in March will be for the April ticket, but it might well be April when they recoup that from your payslip.

jahalpin · 01-04-2020 09:57PM

Sarn wrote: »

Also, they don’t refund two months of your ticket as you pay for 10 months and get two months “free”. If you’ll need to get another ticket once everything goes back to normal it might not be worth your while cancelling.

The 2 free months isn't totally accurate as the maximum weekly cap on a Leap card is €27.50 which is €1,430 a year, the annual taxsaver bus only ticket is €1,450 which means they are actually charging for the 52 weeks plus an additional €20

Daemonic · 01-04-2020 10:22PM

jahalpin wrote: »

The 2 free months isn't totally accurate as the maximum weekly cap on a Leap card is €27.50 which is €1,430 a year, the annual taxsaver bus only ticket is €1,450 which means they are actually charging for the 52 weeks plus an additional €20

Yes, but the €1,450 is taken before tax. Topping up a Leap card each week is after tax so assuming you're on the high tax rate, accounting for allowances etc you might be paying 30% of your total yearly salary in tax so you need to earn abour €1,850 to have the €1,430 in your pocket to spend on Leap topups.

It's not the 50% ish the ads claim you save but there is a saving.

Carawaystick · 06-04-2020 12:05AM

fixxation wrote: »

Does anyone know if the monthly Taxsaver tickets are paid in advance or arrears?

I've been working from home (like many others) for the last couple weeks, and I wrote my finance dept two weeks ago advising that they cancel the monthly ticket, as I don't need it at present. Got my payslip today and it has a Taxsaver charge on it of 145, which they are claiming is for March... I always thought the Taxsaver tickets were paid for in advance?

You unrevocably alter your contract to let your employer reduce your salary by the amount they pay to buy a public transport ticket for you.

Any ticket for March gets paid for by your company at the start of March, or the end of Feb.
they probably pay you in arrears which is why the deduction ahows up now.

jack presley · 14-04-2020 03:41PM

According to The Irish Times, the NTA are looking at options to help commuters with annual/monthly tickets. These include extensions to annual tickets or reimbursements for monthly ones.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/personal-finance/coronavirus-cancellations-are-you-entitled-to-a-full-refund-1.4227717

Nalz · 26-04-2020 11:44PM

jack presley wrote: »

According to The Irish Times, the NTA are looking at options to help commuters with annual/monthly tickets. These include extensions to annual tickets or reimbursements for monthly ones.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/personal-finance/coronavirus-cancellations-are-you-entitled-to-a-full-refund-1.4227717

Any update at all on this?

Why wouldn't they just refund people on annual tickest for the month of March and April?

jack presley · 27-04-2020 09:00AM

Only thing I've read since was a Twitter back and forth between a couple of people and TFI. TFI's argument was that it is up to the individual companies to figure out the best way to resolve the issue and the people responding were saying they couldn't without instruction from TFI.

cython · 30-04-2020 12:07PM

Nalz wrote: »

Any update at all on this?

Why wouldn't they just refund people on annual tickest for the month of March and April?

Refunding direct to people who got tax relief in purchasing (probably most people in reality, they're not really cost effective without this) could introduce additional liabilities for them on that refund. Refunding via an employer or vendor to try to account for this via payroll adds further complexity and cost to any measure.

Simplest measure for annual tickets is probably to extend validity by a month or two (or more), depending on how long this goes on for.

jack presley · 01-05-2020 01:57PM

https://twitter.com/TFIupdates/status/1256205501806886916

acquiescefc · 02-05-2020 02:57AM

I cant see me being in our office this year for obvious safety reasons.
Id rather get a refund

Trampas · 02-05-2020 08:01AM

acquiescefc wrote: »

I cant see me being in our office this year for obvious safety reasons.
Id rather get a refund

I’d be the same and lots of others. Mine is up in July so for train so I’ll lose may and June payments on a refund.

b4nnnn · 26-05-2020 02:18PM

I'm shocked that at the moment there is no option for people who have stayed in the same employment to cancel the ticket and to receive the refund for unused months.

I've contacted NTA about it and I recommend for everybody to do the same to insist that this gets fixed.

Obviously after businesses open many people may continue working remotely full time, and/or may move to live in another place or move to work for a different company. In all those cases getting a "free travel" later will be absolutely worthless. It's actually even worse than that, because since restrictions were put in place we are continuing to pay for that 'free travel'. Even the way it's framed it's manipulative.

goingnowhere · 26-05-2020 02:59PM

Yes you can and always could cancel for the unused portion, its been an option since the scheme launched.

You simply call your HR and tell them to cancel. They call the Taxsaver office work out the numbers and its done. I'm guess they will accept that no travel since April 1st took place and refund accordingly.

https://www.taxsaver.ie/Commuters/Annual-Ticket-Conditions/Annual-Ticket-Conditions/

The problem here is not Irish Rail or Dublin Bus its dealing with your employer HR/payroll to manage the process

cdeb · 26-05-2020 03:04PM

I don't think they're accepting that no travel took place since 1st April.

If you want to cancel, you can do so as normal - i.e. the cancellation is effective the first of the following month.

b4nnnn · 27-05-2020 09:54AM

I've requested to cancel the annual ticket in my job but the HR told me that there won't be any refund given for the unused months.

cdeb · 27-05-2020 10:11AM

You won't get any credit for Mar/Apr/May.

But you will get some credit for future unused months if you cancel the ticket now.

That's Taxsaver's rules, not HR's, of course.

miamee · 27-05-2020 10:33AM

My annual ticket usually runs Feb - Jan and I only pay monthly but work have cancelled it for me from May onwards so no more monthly payments coming from my wages.

namloc1980 · 27-05-2020 12:29PM

Where is the details of what the NTA are going to do about the missed months etc? Announced ages ago they'd do something and then silence.

cdeb · 27-05-2020 12:47PM

Yeah, this is still the last update so far as I know. All details tbc.

jack presley · 28-05-2020 11:05AM

I cancelled my annual ticket this week so this month's wages are the last that will have the money deducted. In the email I got from HR confirming the cancellation, they said Taxsaver have said I'll be getting a refund for the unused months which I'll see at the end of June.

cdeb · 28-05-2020 11:16AM

Which unused months - the future ones or the past ones?

jack presley · 28-05-2020 11:52AM

cdeb wrote: »

Which unused months - the future ones or the past ones?

The past ones I presume as my payments are stopped from now on so there won't be any future ones.

Annual Taxsaver Bus Rail leap card Coronavirus Covid 19 refund for not used ticket

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