Vol. 470 No. 4
80 Miss M. Wallace asked the Minister for Finance the reason a housekeeping allowance does not apply to the spouse of a person with a disability, particularly in a case where a person is required to do housekeeping duties and is therefore unable to seek employment outside the home; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19277/96]
Where an individual is totally incapacitated by physical or mental infirmity throughout a tax year, and employs a person to take care of him or her, the individual is entitled to a deduction up to a maximum of £7,500 from his or her taxable income. The relief also applies where the taxpayer jointly assessed for tax employs the carer for his or her incapacitated spouse. In the 1996 budget this allowance was increased from a maximum of £5,000 to £7,500 per annum.
Given the level of this allowance the criteria for eligibility applying to it are correctly quite restrictive. It is available only where a taxpayer or their spouse is totally incapacitated throughout a tax year and the taxpayer employs a carer. While theoretically the allowance could be available to an incapacitated person who employs his or her spouse to take care of him or her, in practice such an allowance is unlikely to be of any real value in such circumstances.
