Curve Card - Reporting to Revenue?

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ForegoneReal

Registered User
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Hi all.

I'm wondering about the above. I'm thinking about getting a Curve card as I like the idea of being able to have all of my cards merged into one and controlled via the app. The question that arises is liability for tax.

If, for example, I load a prepaid visa debit card onto the Curve Card and proceed to spend it via Curve - does that mean both the debit card provider and curve will report to Revenue that I had spent it? Thus making Revenue believe I've two sources of income.

Maybe I'm being overly paranoid as I don't know if Curve make declarations to Revenue - I assume they do as Paypal are reportedly doing it. Do the merchant aquirers also do it?

I just want to be above board if I get this card and don't want to be under any spot light.

Thanks all.
 
Stamp duty is due on the account not the actual (credit) card. There is no charge on debit cards (there is in ATM functionality aside).

In the same way if you linked your existing cards to Google/apple pay there should be no additional tax.
 
Thank you for the replies.

I have very little knowledge of revenue but I was lead to believe that they have far reaching powers to see someone's spending be it via debit/credit card or paypal and that these companies would be obliged to report to revenue the details of their customers just like the banks do.

Considering Curve also give 1% cashback for some retailers I thought they'd have to tell revenue that too.

Again I'm probably being paranoid but I'm concerned that it might look like I have two cards instead of one. I emailed Curve but their customer support still hasn't gotten back to me within a week.

So aside from stamp duty they don't send anything to revenue to begin with? I don't mind either way once I'm all above board going down this road.
 
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ForegoneReal said:
they have far reaching powers
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They do. But not in the “big brother” way you seem to be thinking.

Revenue’s first view of your income and expenditure arises from your annual tax return if you’re self employed.

If you charge VAT, and are filing as you should be, they have an indication of your turnover.

If you’re selected for an audit, it is then that you’re asked to produce invoices and receipts and your bank accounts.

Revenue have the power to attach your bank account if you default (ie deduct monies from your account directly).

There is no-one in Revenue (actively or otherwise) monitoring the day to day spends on people’s cards as they have no real-time visibility on that.

All that said, if your card habits point to a suspicion of money laundering or terrorist financing, then the card company will be obliged to report you to Revenue and the Garda, except they’ll never let you know that they’ve reported you.
 
Johnno75 said:
Do you?
Click to expand...

I wish! That way I'd have reason to justify my worry.

Thank you for your advice. It's good to understand how things work.

I just want to be 100% compliant. Curve is big enough to warrant not having to worry I guess otherwise every customer would be in this predicament.

I was worried because I thought having a Curve Card Mastercard Number would be considered a second card as opposed to it just being a front for my own bank card.

I'll ask revenue directly about the 1% cashback from Curve. I'll want to declare it if there's a limit to what you can earn that way.
 
If a payment card offers cashback to customers, that is not income.

Therefore income tax is not involved.

If you ring Revenue over an issue like this, I'm not surprised if they laugh at it.

Bord Gais, Tesco, and many other retailers offers gifts/cashback, etc. That is not income.
 
It's admirable that you want to be fully compliant and not attract Revenue gaze unnecessarily, but there's nothing to worry about here.

Where you might have heard reference to Paypal reporting to Revenue would have been in the context of merchant activities (i.e. potential undeclared income) and/or large/suspicious transfers, not mundane consumer activities.
 
I had a curve card and noticed a few times that they charged me in sterling instead of euro.
eg buy something in Tesco for €32 and curve had it as £32.
This would happen on only one transaction every couple of months when i went looking back through the statements.
I tried contacting them about it and it was such a painful experience i just cancelled the card.
Curve blamed the merchant, the merchant blamed curve.
I never got it sorted. And the help from Curve was woeful. Almost on a bar with Eir for customer experience when you have to contact them about an issue.
 
buy something in Tesco for €32 and curve had it as £32.
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Are you sure the numeric amount was the same and only the currency changed? I can understand a merchant potentially misidentifying the native currency of the card, and therefore misapplying DCC, but I can't see how the currency became confused on random transactions (i.e. not consistently for the same merchant).
 
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