Sir, – I have been writing letters to my beloved Irish Timesfor 40 years, and never before have I received so extensive a response from members of the public as to the letter you published from me on Saturday, January 6th. The communications ranged from tax consultants offering me free advice to the woman who wept on the telephone because a letter had arrived for her dead husband. The phone calls came from all over the country.
Just when I was getting up the stamina today to face another afternoon trying to get through on the phone to my local tax office, lo and behold, someone from it rang me (having seen my letter to The Irish Times), and the issue was sorted out satisfactorily within minutes.
Many thanks Irish Timesand shame on our Government for treating loyal, responsible citizens so shabbily. For the first time in our history, we can truly say we have a Conservative Government in power and as a lifelong supporter of the Labour Party, it breaks my heart to say this. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – I hold both accounting and legal qualifications and have employment experience in both professions. I now assist my recently widowed mother with her legal, financial and income tax affairs.
The fact she is recently widowed is known to both the Department of Social Protection and the Revenue Commissioners. My mother, like other Department of Social Protection pensioners, received her letter from the Revenue Commissioners. Its first paragraph reads: “I am writing to you to advise you that we have reviewed your pension details and note that the amount we hold on our records for your DSP pension was understated. We have corrected the details for 2012 and as a result additional tax will be deducted from your occupational pension or salary cheque”.
The letter fails to indicate which year her pension was allegedly understated and also fails to provide her with a calculation to illustrate the alleged understatement. The Revenue Commissioners unilaterally determine she is liable for additional tax.
I find our Government Ministers’ and Revenue Commissioners’ complete ignorance of the most basic principles of natural justice regarding this whole incident astonishing. – Yours, etc,
MARTIN J TIERNEY,
Marlborough Road,
Glenageary, Co Dublin.
A chara, – If there is someone to blame for this new tax on pensioners, it is me! Back in June 2010 when I returned home to Dublin, my mother was in some distress. She had received a letter from Revenue claiming she had been overpaid in her State pension since she was also in receipt of my deceased father’s AIB pension. The letter claimed that from 2006 to 2009, she had received over €10,000 in excess State pension, as this pension and her AIB pension were not being taxed properly by Revenue.
Since the passing of my father, I have tried to keep my mother’s finances in order, albeit from Canada, so you can imagine how upsetting this was for me to come home to. As a family we then started to ask some simple questions: 1. Do Revenue and Social Welfare departments not use the same PPS number as a reference to tax individuals and also pay their social welfare payments? 2. Should we make a repayment to Revenue for this? 3. How can our mother afford such a repayment? The only question that we all agreed on was that we should make this repayment as it was the right thing to do. We drafted a letter to Revenue requesting that she be allowed to repay the amounts over a two to three year period by having her tax credits reduced and that she pay the full amount for 2006 (€2,700) as a good-faith first payment. On that same letter we asked question 1. (above) and 18 months later, it appears that we have the answer. Perhaps our letter brought this issue to their attention.
Unfortunately, now 115,000 people and their families are feeling the same angst we did. For that, I apologise wholeheartedly. However, I cannot apologise for the shortcomings of the department and the Revenue Commissioners. – Your,etc,
A chara, – As one of the old age pensioners who received the Revenue Commissioners’ threatening letter, I want to place on record my deep anger not only at the letter but also at the mealy-mouthed way you “criticised” the action in your Editorial (January 9th).
Certainly, neither my wife nor myself – and both of us received these insulting letters – “failed to declare” our income from the State pension. I spent several frustrating weeks trying to organise things since I retired in July, and was mainly concerned about getting a tax rebate owing to the difference in my pre- and post-retirement incomes.
We are not the only ones. Other pensioners I have spoken to had also fully informed the Revenue about their situations.
It is quite clear that the Revenue Commissioners made a huge mistake, which has cost the State significant money. But instead of accepting their responsibility and the blame, they have in a cowardly display of contempt for pensioners attempted to blame us for their failures.
Heads should roll over this, and should include all those involved in this action. – Is mise,
Sir, – One is obliged to ask if the large number of ex-members of the Oireachtas in receipt of State pensions will be taxed as part of the latest wheeze on behalf of the Revenue Commissioners? If they are then we are surely well on the road to recovering our economic sovereignty. – Yours, etc,
Sir,– Pól Ó Coinsalígh (January 9th), seems to be of the view that the Revenue Commissioners chase only pensioners for tax liabilities, while ignoring “big tax- evaders”. This is completely wrong, as lists of tax defaulters published regularly by Revenue show. Often the settlements reached on these lists run into hundreds of thousands, or even millions – so clearly Revenue do pursue those big tax-evaders for their liabilities. Mr Ó Coinsalígh also seems to be of the view that pension income being taxable is something new, which of course it isn’t. It has long been liable for tax once above the standard thresholds; however the comments by Minister of State Brian Hayes make clear that arrears will not be sought in the vast majority of cases involving pensioners.
Perhaps Mr Ó Coinsalígh might now agree that he has his facts the wrong way round, as the Government is clearly taking a humane approach to the issue of pensioners’ tax liabilities, while continuing to pursue and catch the big evaders – and thus deserves credit, rather than ill-informed criticism. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – The fault for this recent debacle clearly rests in the first instance with the Department of Social Protection (DSP). All monies issued by way of a contributory pension could be liable to income tax. The agent responsible for collection of income tax under PAYE is the DSP (as it’s in the same position as an employer). The DSP failed miserably in its duty. Pensioners should require the DSP to deduct same from their pensions on a weekly basis and the Revenue should be required to issue certificates of tax free allowance in respect of same to the DSP and pensioners, in the normal manner (the Revenue failed in its duty here).
The Revenue has acted in a heavy-handed manner like a juggernaut out of control. The blame has been apportioned to pensioners – quite incorrectly in my view. The decision by the Revenue to unilaterally deduct cumulative sums from occupational pensions and to reduce credits and bands, is in all probability illegal, and should be challenged by way of judicial review. To bully in this fashion more than 115,000 elderly citizens of this country is unacceptable, requiring the head of the head of Revenue as a minimum. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Not only do the Revenue Commissioners’ computers not communicate with those of the Department of Social Protection, they do not communicate with their own internal systems. The Revenue’s letter to me last week informed me that they had reviewed my pension details and noted that the amount they hold on their records for my Department of Social Protection pension was understated. This surprised me as I have used the ROS system to make my annual tax returns and always included my DPS pension in it.
When I got through to the Revenue helpline after 13 minutes, a very pleasant civil servant informed me that indeed my return of my DPS pension of €11,976 was correct but that their PAYE system had inaccurately recorded it as €11,962. When I asked her what was the source of the inaccurate figure she simply responded that their ROS and PAYE systems do not communicate with one another.
I suppose that an apology is out of the question! – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Presumably Pol Ó Cionsalígh (January 9th) who is indignant about the idea of pensioners paying their correct tax to the Revenue would agree that, in the interest of fairness, those of us who have naively paid tax on our State pensions all along should get a refund? Given that I must have paid enough to justify a five-figure rebate, I look forward to taking a lengthy cruise on the proceeds. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – The reason so many pensioners are angry about the recent letters issued by the Revenue Commissioners, is not because they are unwilling to pay any extra tax that may be due, but because the Revenue Commissioners got it so extraordinarily wrong.
The Revenue say they sent out 150,000 letters, of which 115,000 state that “additional tax will be deducted from your occupational pension or salary” because the Revenue’s records on the “amount of your Department of Social Protection pension was understated”. I got one of these letters. It was accompanied by an up-to-date tax credit certificate which showed that my tax credits far exceeded any tax that could possibly be payable on my miniscule occupational/private pension.
Because my income from all sources is well below the threshold, I have had no tax liability for several years past, nor will I have in future years, and I have always included my social welfare pension in any tax returns I made.
I suspect that the vast majority of the letters that were sent out went to people like me who could have no possible tax liability, or to people who do pay tax but are fully tax-compliant, having already declared their social welfare pension as part of their over-all income.
The Revenue Commissioners seem to have assumed that people over 65 who had other sources of income had, in general, failed to include the social welfare pension in their tax returns and are, in effect, tax-dodgers. By contrast, I would argue that it is probably true that people over 65 are, on average, more tax-compliant than the general population. I would also be willing to bet that, out of the 115,000 who got those letters last week, less than 5 per cent will be found to owe any money to the Revenue.
I should be grateful, therefore, if you would stop repeating the Revenue Commissioners’ calumny, which implied that 115,000 of us were tax-dodgers. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – I’m one of the people who got “the letter”. It’s difficult to make head or tail of it in terms of its language and how it attempts to give examples and explanations.
And this is bearing in mind that I used to work for the UK revenue and my last job from which I retired a year ago was in financial administration! What seems clear though is that they would appear to have taken a blanket approach and that every last one of us old-timers has got (or is getting) the letter whether or not our tax affairs are in order.
In my own instance, I’ve calculated that they actually owe me a couple of hundred quid from last year and that I won’t be paying any more this year than I was expecting to.
There is a lot of unnecessary scaremongering going on and I can well imagine that it has put the wind up a lot of people, many of whom are vulnerable.
So far it’s been very badly handled by the powers-that-be, but why should that surprise any of us? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – If you are in your early pension years now, then you were in your 40s, (prime family-raising years), in the 1980s. Another glorious epoque in the economic history of this country. Then there was high unemployment, mass emigration and tax rates as high as 60 per cent for those who stayed and were lucky enough to have a job. Surely these people, now pensioners, are taking a double-hit in their lifetimes for economic bungling by various governments? Surely they have done their bit for Revenue Commissioner and country?
For PAYE workers should there not be a limit to the percentage of income paid in tax in a lifetime? – Yours, etc,