Average PAYE refund was €900 last year

Filling out an online tax return annually is a simple process for most people. And it should be a simple process. But, when you first look at www.revenue.ie website the menu looks pretty confusing especially to people who are not used to laptops etc. The initial page is crowded with many services and some of the titles therein may be confusing also.

That web page should be more inviting e.g. Item Number One should be:- Your Tax Claim for the past calendar/tax year. In the current lead-in web page you have to read through much that is of no interest to the claimant.

When you eventually find and complete your Claim and you must log out. {Fair Enough!} - You immediately think you’ve finished the process, but you’re not. You are invited on a pop up message to log in again and after a click or two later your tax claim is completed and you receive an email indicating your claim will be processed.

Thing is, I suspect many will stop the process on being forced to log out before the pop up message appears.

I reckon fear of using Revenue,ie confuses many and consequently many don’t claim their entitlements. Read my lips:- The Process Should Be More Simple.
 
For anyone interested in the tax system being taught in school:

Transition Year Introduction to Tax module

www.revenue.ie

For those interested in the guides to using myaccount to file a return the link below takes you through it step by step with some videos:

How to submit a PAYE Income Tax Return

This page outlines to process regarding how you can submit a PAYE Income Tax Return
www.revenue.ie

On the reason why you have to enter a password at the end of the return you are submitting; I would imagine as it's tax return, it's replicating the hard copy returns which require a signature confirmation that you understand that you have just made a legal declaration.
 
"How is it patronising to assume that youngsters are financially illiterate and need education on how to operate a bank account"

The reality these days is that teenagers and young adults run rings around their parents' generation when it comes to embracing bank accounts and financial awareness.
 
There is a fear of engaging with Revenue which is as much a cultural thing as anything else. Anyone who has ever paid in cash or taken cash for a job or a bit of overtime, or just a general belief that the Taxman is out to get the ordinary Joe and if they fill the form in wrong, they'll be done for thousands.

The form is simple(ish) for those people who have a reasonable degree of financial literacy and retain their health receipts etc. However, for a modern App first generation, it is very much against their experience and probably needs a major overhaul at how it is presented at this stage.

Revenue could do worse then getting a focus group together of may 100 people in their early 20s and work through the form to hear their feedback
 
When I last filled out a Form 11, I was obliged to confirm that I hadn’t availed of a property related tax relief that was abolished in 2011 I think.

There were several other fields like this and the whole user experience is a bit 2006.

Tax professionals tend to like complexity as it keeps them in a job.
 
T McGibney said:
The reality these days is that teenagers and young adults run rings around their parents' generation when it comes to embracing bank accounts and financial awareness.
Click to expand...
I have personally assisted a few of my daughters friends to open bank accounts. They were clueless about how to do it and had no idea about how bank interest operates.

In the latest case the young person has decided not to open a Raisin account because of the necessity to do a tax return to declare the bank interest.

These were young adults who had completed 3rd level Irish education with professional qualifications.
 
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Most of us contributing to this forum likely would have no problems submitting the annual tax return online. Most of the required information is already pre loaded by Revenue already. All you have got to do is tick the appropriate amounts and enter your medical expenses and keep a copy of the medical expenses for five years.

The reality is many people are wrongly in fear of Revenue and fail to lodge the yearly claim or decide to pay somebody to deal with the claim.

Other matters can kick in e.g. death of a family member, retirement etc where tax matters can be cast aside almost forever or put on the long finger. @T McGibney is right inasmuch as the Revenue Online Procedure changes almost every year. The lead in to your online declaration can look confusing by the sheer amount of titles on the first page and for anybody submitting an annual tax claim there is some finding out to do to get on the right track. But, when you eventually get on the right track the process takes no longer than ten minutes.

Most claimants need only to compile the total amount of medical expenses for the previous year and I think a “Fast-Track” section should be made available as the first choice of tabs. Revenue would then have more claims and faster. Likely, the claimant won’t have to hire anybody to do the simple process.
 
S class said:
In the latest case the young person has decided not to open a Raisin account because of the necessity to do a tax return to declare the bank interest.
Click to expand...
That may be a perfectly rational decision. Depending on the amount they intend to deposit, the amount of additional interest they will get by depositing with Raisin over what they would get by depositing with an Irish bank may not justify, for them, the faff of having to complete and submit a tax return that they would not otherwise have to submit.

Over in this thread Tom McGibney makes the point that our tax system has become a lot more complex in the past 25 years. This is a real burden to the average taxpayer; tax compliance is a burdensome demand on his time and, the more complex the system is, the greater the likelihood that the average taxpayer will not use the system to their best advantage. These are not good features of any tax system.

It shouldn't suprise you that taxpayers like to minimise their tax compliance obligations and will suffer a modest financial cost to do that. This isn't an indicator of financial illiteracy or incompetence, but a rational choice not to engage in unpleasant or burdensome actvities in order to realise what might be tiny amounts of money. To be blunt, they'd rather have the time than the money.
 
"Tax professionals tend to like complexity as it keeps them in a job."
Absolute nonsense @Dr Strangelove.

The biggest contributor ever to work for tax professionals is the 12.5% Corporation Tax rate, which in almost all cases operates so simply that standard Corporation Tax computations could be done literally on the back of an envelope.

And yet the CT1 Corporation Tax return is a design mess that necessitates even most simple companies to tick a succession of boxes to declare themselves outside the scope of a ridiculous number of obscure provisions.

Good luck to you if you think that tax pros like that claptrap. It's like saying that dentists love looking into mouths full of rotten teeth.
 
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