The incapacitated child tax credit of €500 per annum, to which I assume the Deputy refers in her question, is a long-standing relief under the income tax code which recognises the particular expenses involved for parents in taking care of a child who is permanently incapacitated by reason of mental or physical infirmity. I will outline a number of reliefs other than the incapacitated child tax credit which may be of benefit to married couples where both spouses are disabled.
Section 469 of the Taxes Consolidation Act, 1997, provides for tax relief at the marginal rate in respect a defined range of health expenses which are otherwise not reimbursed. Prior to the Finance Act, 2002, claims could only be made by an individual in respect of his-her own expenses, or expenses met for a dependent relative or child who is not a relative but is being maintained by the individual. In the Finance Act, 2002, I extended this relief to allow an individual to make a claim in respect of expenses met for a wider range of relatives and for other individuals, whether they are relatives or not, aged 65 or over or who are permanently incapacitated.
Section 468 of the Tax Consolidation Act, 1997, provides for a blind person's tax credit, which in the current tax year amounts to €800 in the case of a single person and €1,600 where a person and his or her spouse are both blind. The definition of a blind person for the purposes of the credit is set out in section 468 of the Act.
Under section 446 of the Taxes Consolidation Act, 1997, and subject to certain conditions as set out in that section, an individual may claim the dependent relative tax credit – currently €60 per annum – if he-she maintains at his-her own expense a relative of a claimant, or of the claimant's spouse, incapacitated by old age or infirmity from maintaining himself or herself, or the widowed father or widowed mother of the claimant or of the claimant's spouse, whether incapacitated or not, or a son or daughter of the claimant who resides with the claimant and on whose services the claimant, by reason of old age or infirmity, is compelled to depend.