Indo - "Revenue is chasing tens of thousands of pensioners over owed tax"

Impressive evidence of some wonderfully creative imaginations in overdrive on this thread; and, as the fella says, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing!

I'm happy to leave ye to it.

Here's some reading material for the information hungry among you:

 
Typical Indo, dramatic headline seeking to get clicks

The letters in question are not tax demands. The letters are part of letters going out to 260k people who may have underpaid or overpaid taxes. So some of the people impacted are owed money by the state. The letters seemingly are telling people what to do to check their end of year statement and file a return.

It would be helpful if anyone on here has got such a letter and could post a copy of it.

And yes, it will stress some people out because lets be honest, any brown envelope with a harp on it makes us all a bit nervous. But for a lot of people, it is easily dealt with and the amounts due (if any) will be small. For those who owe large amounts, I have less sympathy for.

Some people will stuggle to do a return (dementia, lack of computer skills etc) but most should be able to do so, or engage a child/grandchild to assist.
 
some wonderfully creative imaginations in overdrive
My own wonderfully creative imagination is now in overdrive and thinking that the whole palaver is a PR smokescreen to move on from the devastating news earlier in the week that one-in-seven of Revenue staff are being overpaid, some handsomely so, and with apparently no negative consequences for anyone.

If it was anything else, they wouldn't be initiating it at the height of the holiday season.
 
My own wonderfully creative imagination is now in overdrive and thinking that the whole palaver is a PR smokescreen to move on from the devastating news earlier in the week that one-in-seven of Revenue staff are being overpaid, some handsomely so, and with apparently no negative consequences for anyone.
hmm....., a cunning plan in the Irish public sector. Are you giving them too much credit?
 
Interesting thread.

I recently filed my 2024 tax return. I started to receive my state pension last year 2024 and as indicated by others, my DSP pension was also listed, BUT tax did not seem to be deducted. I made an enquiry as I reckoned i owed more tax and want it sorted sooner rather than later. My UK state pension, which also started in 2024 and which i had declared myself, WAS taken into account for tax purposes so it was odd that the Irish state pension, which had been filled in automatically, was not.

A revenue mistake perhaps as mentioned earlier? I await an answer to my enquiry.
 
I'm due to move from invalidity pension to state pension in September. Do I have to inform revenue through enquiries on 'my account' ?
 
BUT tax did not seem to be deducted
Were your tax credits reduced to account for it as described here?
 
No, as I only received pensions in 2024. I expect them to be reduced for 2025. I plan to phone revenue in the next week as I would like a revised tax credit statement issued asap so tax is deducted from my current work pension so my tax bill is not major when I do my 2025 return next year.
 
No, as I only received pensions in 2024. I expect them to be reduced for 2025.
That's not how Revenue describe how it works.
And it's not my experience with Jobseeker's Benefit and Illness Benefit where the credits were reduced for the year in which I received the payments.
 
Yes, I was expecting that the Irish state pension would have been included in the calculation of of my tax, as the pension amount was inputed automatically by revenue. But by my calculations I still owed the equivalent of 40% of my state pension so it looked like it was omitted from the calculation. As I said, I sent off an enquiry about two weeks ago and have not heard anything back yet.
 
If @Stitcher is typical of the pensioners getting these letters, the issue seems to be one of incorrect Form 11 completion...

@Stitcher, the F11 return is pre-populated with DSP pension income for your information to assist you in completing the form, but you have to undertake some form of action to formally confirm / enter the amount of the income in your self-assessment. It seems that you didn't do that, and made a self-assessment that omitted the income. It's a fundamental of a self-assessment system that the taxpayer has to enter (or perhaps transcribe in this case) their income figures and be responsible for making a complete and correct self-assessment.

If that has happened across tens of thousands of people, it suggests that the user interface for the form must not be clear enough, or give enough guidance to users. At a minimum you'd think there should be some kind of validation prompt ("Are you sure you had no DSP Pension Income?"), if the self-assessment is going to omit a source that Revenue are pretty sure exists...

I'm not a Form 11 filer, nor have I completed one on behalf of anyone else since the information started to come pre-populated, but it's pretty foolproof when doing a PAYE return, where you confirm your employment income details.
 
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