VHI - employer informs revenue for first time

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IWONDER

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Hi - I have been reading up on previous posts on this subject but still have some queries.
My employer has been paying my VHI since I started in the company over 9 years ago. I pay BIK every month, but being a bit of a dimwit where my tax situation is concerned - I have never claimed relief on it.
Yesterday I received an updated tax cert with Medical Insurance Relief for the first time, and it has to have been my employer that informed the Revenue, as I did not.

My questions are:-
Is it my or my employers responsibility to inform the Revenue of this benefit?
If I inform Revenue of the previous years - will this cause problems for my employer? (I don't really care as they are a mult-national, am just curious).
How far back can I claim the relief - I read somewhere about 4 years being the maximum time, but am still not clear).
Do I just go about the claim on my own without involving my employer - or will I need to get them to sign some sort of a letter for me - as I have read in recent posts that this may not be possible to do online any longer).

Thanks in advance for any replies (and sorry for the long-winded post).
 
I'd say your tax affairs are your business and don't worry about your company.
Ring revenue and explain the situation. As you were paying BIK I think it would be unreasonable of them not to refund you any relief going back all the way.
 
You can claim the relief for the last four years, but the revenue will not look back further than that.
 
It was not the employers responsibility to inform the Revenue about your tax credit claim.
The reason it appeared this year on your tax credits is that the P35 end of year form that the employer submits to Revenue now includes a box for this item for the first time.
Be careful before you try to claim back 9 years. Before 2004 the BIK liability was not collected through the payroll system. Each employee was required to advise Revenue that they were getting VHI paid by employer. Revenue then adjusted tax credit to recoup the BIK liability.
If you were not declaring VHI as a BIK ( many people didn't, hence the change to taxing BIK through the payroll ) you could actually end up owing more to the Tax man than you will get back.

If you were declaring it then you can try make a case for 9 yrs but 4 is the limit. I think Revene know they made a mess on the introduction of TRS on medical insurance. Many many employers and employees have handled it incorrectly.
 
Thanks for the responses guys.
aidan119 - thanks for that specific advice. I had started to look through my old payslips at the weekend and the pre: 2005 ones are in the attic so hadn't gotten round to those yet. I'll check them out and will give the Revenue a ring when I have all my facts together. I'll leave it as a claim for the previous 3 years as there is no point in hanging Myself for a tax claim !
 
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