The Family Income Supplement (FIS) is designed to provide support for people with families who are on low earnings. This preserves the incentive for them to remain in employment in circumstances where they might only be marginally better off than if they were claiming other social welfare payments.
FIS is calculated on the basis of 60% of the difference between the income limit for the family size and the net income of the person(s) raising the child(ren). Net income for FIS purposes comprises total family income less income tax, employee PRSI, universal social charge (USC) and pension contributions (including superannuation and additional voluntary contributions AVCs).
For FIS purposes, weekly family income is defined in Section 227 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act, 2005, as the amount of income received in a week by a family less, inter alia, any allowable contributions referred to in Regulations 41 and 42 of the Income Tax (Employments) (Consolidated) Regulations 2001. Accordingly, any pension contribution is excluded from the definition of weekly family income for the purposes of determining entitlement to FIS.
FIS applicants are required to provide a P60 or recent payslips in support of their applications. If there is doubt about the applicant’s tax credit entitlement the customer may be contacted regarding this issue and requested to contact Revenue and/or to furnish a recent tax credits certificate. However it should be noted that each individual’s entitlement to tax credits and reliefs is a matter for the Revenue Commissioners.
There is no provision in Social Welfare legislation to allow for the exclusion of the local property tax from weekly family income for FIS purposes. Accordingly the local property tax will not be deductible from gross income when calculating net weekly family income.