Advice needed on non-declaration in Ireland of historic UK pension

D

diceyreilly

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Hi all,
Looking for advice or similar experiences. 88 year old is a PAYE pensioner, now in a nursing home for several years. He hasnt filed tax returns for a number of years, assuming everything was covered through PAYE. However it was recently realised he never claimed for nursing home medical expenses, which he has been paying (approx. €3000month).

Want to file tax returns to claim back some of this (Revenue allows up to 4 years online). But now also noticed there’s a small UK pension (around £240/month) that hasn’t been declared in Ireland and possibly never was — this could go back as far as 22 years. There’s no access to his prior tax records to confirm at the moment.

Since 2021, about €6,000/year has been deducted in tax from his Irish pensions (excluding the UK one). What’s the best course of action here?

Should the UK pension be declared now when filing for the 4 years?
Will Revenue impose penalties or interest for not declaring it before?
Is it better to contact Revenue before filing online?
Any experience with this kind of retrospective issue?
Thanks in advance
 
If I were in your shoes, I would engage a tax advisor who has a good rapport with Revenue staff.

No one, in my opinion,will be looking to throw an 88 year old in jail or slap them with enormous fines.

Pull all the figures together, with as much documentation as you can gather & have your advisor work the numbers & make your case.
 
Thank you for advice. Will start looking for tax adviser in South East if recommendations are allowed it’d be great. What would be the ball park rate for retaining an adviser? Is there a register of tax advisers I could search? Thanks all
 
The institute of taxation has a member’s register. That might be a good place to start.

Or maybe a large/medium accountancy practice as they’ll have tax departments. Just call and ask to speak to someone who deals with personal tax.

In my experience the bigger firms are more expensive but with that comes access to experience
 
It's very unlikely Revenue will be the least bit interested in pursuing a marginal case like this involving an elderly person. Just proceed as originally planned with the tax returns for the past few years. It will then be open to Revenue to ask any pertinent questions but I'd be surprised if they do.

The far bigger risk is if the pensioner is on a non-contributory pension and has not declared the UK income to the Dept of Social Protection in which case the excess pension paid to them will be recouped from his estate after his death, and in which event any contingent tax issues will become moot.

If you're hiring an accountant, get recommendations from trusted family, friends, colleagues.

Purposely going to a tax consultant or the tax dept of a large accountancy firm would be total overkill and you'd probably end up with an intern doing the work.
 
Also isn't it the case that the taxation of UK public service pension rec'd in Ireland may be different than the treatment of UK private sector pensions in Ireland?
 
Also isn't it the case that the taxation of UK public service pension rec'd in Ireland may be different than the treatment of UK private sector pensions in Ireland?
Click to expand...
Yes but it depends on the details of the "public service" as that covers a whole range of jobs

In short, UK public service pensions are taxable in the UK and a tax credit is available in the Ireland for the tax paid in the UK

UK private pensions are only taxable in Ireland

But the devil is in the detail and depends on what the job that gave rise to the pension was
 
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