Elizabeth Moles

There is a little known tax relief for people who are buying (or building) their first home.
If you are a first-time buyer of a house (or apartment) which you intend to use as your home and use your savings as a deposit, then you could claim a refund of the DIRT (deposit interest retention tax) deducted from the interest on your savings.
The house must not be an investment property, and it must be your first house purchase.

The relief applies to any first-time buyer and have purchased or are planning to purchase a home between 14th October 2014 and 31st December 2017. The refund can be for up to 4 years of DIRT

How does it Work

Firstly the purchase must take place between 14th October 2014 and 31st December 2017.
You must use your savings as the deposit.

The relief is confined to the DIRT paid on your savings, up to a maximum of 20% of the purchase price of the house (or in the case of self-builds, 20% of the completion value of the house.

So, as an example, you buy a house in June 2015 for €190,000. Under this relief, you can claim a refund of the DIRT paid on the first €38,000 (€190,000 x 20%) that you had on deposit up to the date of purchase.
OK, so say you had €30,000 in your savings account, paying 3% interest and for the last 4 assume the average rate of DIRT on the interest earned was 33%.
This would mean that over 4 years you would have paid approximately €1,200 in DIRT on the interest on your savings.

The DIRT relief for first time buyers means that you could get a refund of €1,200 from Revenue – not bad!

How to Claim

To make a claim, the property must be registered for Local Property Tax (LPT).

Once registered, you log in to the LPT system and enter your PPS number/Tax Reference Number, Property ID and Secure LPT PIN.

Once in the LPT system, you click the Claim DIRT F.T.B. Refund button. This will display a claim form and you enter the required information and submit your claim.
The following information is needed to make a claim:

• Amount of DIRT to be refunded,
• Purchase price or completion value for a self-build,
• Purchase date/completion date,
• Email address,
• Bank Account details to which the refund is to be paid
• Evidence of DIRT deducted (i.e. bank statements).

Did you know that you can get tax relief at the standard rate of 20% on tuition fees paid during the year?

How does it work?

You can claim tax relief on tuition fees paid for third level courses, however, you cannot claim tax relief on Examination or administration fees or any part of the tuition fees that is met directly or indirectly by a grant, a scholarship or otherwise, e.g. where your fees are reimbursed by an employer.

The maximum amount of fees (including the Student Contribution) that can qualify for tax relief is €7,000 per person per course (for the academic year 2015/2016). If you have paid tuition fees in respect of more than one individual attending college in an academic year, tax relief is due to you in respect of the fees paid for each person up to the maximum limit per course.

The relief can be granted for either a full-time or part-time course so long as they last for at least 2 years, and are approved by the Department of Education and Skills.

The first €3,000 for full-time and €1,500 for part-time courses is discarded when calculating the relief

PostGraduate Fees

Postgraduate courses must be for at least one academic year but not more than four academic years in duration and must lead to a postgraduate award based on either a thesis or an examination. The student must already have a primary degree or an equivalent qualification.

Information Technology and Foreign Language Courses

The relief is also available for fees paid for training courses in information technology and foreign languages (other than postgraduate courses) if the following conditions are met:

• The course involved must be less than two years
• It must result in the awarding of a certificate of competence
• The course must be approved by SOLAS.

Paying in Installments

Where fees are paid in instalments and any of the installments are paid in a tax year following the year in which approved course commenced, the relief for fees relating to that academic year may be granted either:

• in the tax year the course started, or
• in the tax year in which the instalment was paid.

However, relief will only be granted in respect of amounts actually paid, subject to the maximum relief available in that academic year.

How to Claim the Tax Relief

The relief can be claimed during the tax year once the fees have been paid. A revised Tax Credit Certificate showing the relief due will then be issued to you.

Alternatively a claim can be made at the end of the tax year by submitting your Form P60. Your income tax liability for the year will be reviewed and Revenue will make any refund that may be due to you.
If you are self-employed this tax credit is claimed by completing the Tuition Fees section on your annual tax return.
To claim the relief, complete the attached
claim form and forward it to your Revenue office.

A separate claim form must be completed where you are claiming relief in respect of more than one student.

Fingal County Council have a new incentive to get more rental property on their books. Its called their Long term Lease Scheme and the details are as follows:

From 5 to 20 years (you choose the length of time), you could have:

• no vacancy costs,
• no letting fees,
• no rent arrears and
• no day ­to ­day maintenance costs.
• Guaranteed income of up to 92 % of the market rent.
• Regular rent reviews to make sure your rental income is on par with market rent.

Fingal County Council are looking for good quality fully furnished vacant 1,2,3 and 4 bedroom properties across the Fingal area. The scheme is not restricted to just one property per landlord, multiple properties are.

On the face of it, it looks like a very good way to have a guaranteed rental income from your property with very little effort needed on the part of the landlord, so if you have property in North Dublin that might meet their criteria, and don’t want (or have the time) to maintain the property, look for tenants, deal with letting agents, … Then why not look into this scheme.

For more information contact Fingal County Council on:

By Phone: (01) 8708425
By email: ras@fingal.ie or leasing@fingal.ie