Carers allowance in year of maternity leave

Just to let those of you facing a year containing maternity leave know, according to the local tax office where one of a couple who are jointly assessed goes on maternity leave, the other can claim a carers allowance and continue to claim it until the other goes back to work OR if the other is self employed ( ie starts up a business) until they are sure to make a taxable income of approx over €5000.00. Maybe this is a common one, but I never heard of it before!

PS Sorry about where this message is posted- I was SURE I was in the Taxation forum when I clicked on new thread!

Vanilla


This sounds too good to be true, my wife is on maternity leave and parental leave from her employment at the moment.We are jointly assessed PAYE workers, are we eligible?

Vanilla

Just rang my tax office to discuss this, spot on! Thanks!. But there is an income limit in place, if my wife returns to work this year and earns more than €6000 (I think) in this tax year, we wouldn't be eligible. Why don't the Revenue tell people this stuff ?(stupid question). I'd already been on to them about other tax issues relevant to my wife's maternity leave earlier this month and they never said a thing! I'm sure there must be thousands of PAYE workers who would benefit from this information.if they were ever informed of course. No lets stick to giving tax incentives to property developers instead..uh oh I'm crossing into LOS territory.Thanks again for the info.

You're welcome, glad it helped!

Hi Vanilla - I'm pretty sure that the carers allowance only applies once baby is actually born, i.e. the 'carer' has a dependant to care for. You're aware that the carers allowance is just €700 per annum? While it is welcome, you wont get too far in baby wipes & nappies for just €700. I have to confess that I took particular pleasure in clainming the allowance in 2003 when our little girl was born with just 10 days left to run in the year. So we got €70 per day for that year for her from those nice people in Revenue!

The wording taken from www.revenue.ie:

A tax credit at the standard rate of tax (20%) in the tax years 2004 and 2005 is available for married couples where:

• One spouse (the ‘home carer’) works in the home caring for one or more dependent persons, i.e., a child for whom they are entitled to Social Welfare child benefit, a person aged 65 or over, or a person who is permanently incapacitated by reason of mental or physical infirmity and the qualifying person normally resides with the couple for the year.
• The home carer’s income is not in excess of €5,080. A reduced tax credit applies where the income is between €5,080 and €6,620.

The tax credit is not available to married couples that are taxed as single persons. Neither is the tax credit available to married couples with combined incomes over €37,000 in the tax year 2004 and €38,400 in the tax year 2005 and who claim the increased standard rate tax band for dual income couples. For more information and also to claim the relief due complete the application form in Leaflet IT 66 and send it to your local Revenue office. Alternatively, you can telephone your Revenue Regional LoCall number (see page 8) with details of your claim.

The tax credit is €770.00- not a huge amount, but every little helps, plus theres that satisfaction element in knowing a new tax credit( at least for me).

I should have said that it only applies once jr is born- but could you not claim the carers credit for the next year Rainyday- I'm assuming your wifes maternity leave ran into the next year ( otherwise I guess you're married to Superwoman).

Reading this with interest ... can I clarify? I went on Maternity leave in late May 03, baby born June 03 and I went back to work in late November '03 - can I now put in a claim for the carer's allowance for 2003 at this stage? Do you have to be jointly assessed to be entitled to this? I am married since '02 and have been treated as a single person by the revenue till now (just never got round to getting all that sorted and getting P60's from my Husbands's Accountant) but am sorting it out now and will get us jointly assessed backdated to mid '02 - so can we claim for the carer's allowance still? Thanks ...

Vanilla, you must have edited your post to include more info as I was posting mine, hence the q's I've asked that you've covered above so please ignore, thanks.