If your wife paid tax for the portion of last year that she was working then she would be able to use up her unused tax credits for the end of the year when she was on mat leave. If she returned to work during the same year then she would have used all her credits that had built up (presumably).
I would suggest getting a balancing statement done for the two of you to ensure that only the correct tax was paid. If you like you can post here your details from final payslip or P60 and we'll calculate whether there were unused credits or transferable rateband which would result in a refund
If she was being paid by her employer while on mat leave then it's a slightly different story and she would also be due prsi refund.
Sybil
Thats correct. Her wages never changed in amount, just the makeup of them. So nothing due. Ah well.So, her basic pay from work was reduced by the amount of the mat ben? (ie gross pay reduced from 600 to 330 and a further 270 paid to your wife by social welfare). If this was the case then no tax or prsi would have been operated on the non-taxable pay and so no refund would be due.
A refund arises when the employer continues to pay the usual 600 gross and the mat ben is paid over to the employer but tax operated as normal.
It is something of an anomaly that a person in receipt of mat ben or the first 6 weeks of illness benefit is actually better off after tax than they normally are.
Sybil