The Single Person Child Carer Credit (SPCCC) is provided for in Section 462B of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 and is available to a parent or a person, defined as the "primary claimant", who has custody of and maintains a child who is living with him or her. The primary claimant may, if he or she so wishes, relinquish it to a "secondary claimant" with whom the child resides for at least 100 days in the year.
In relation to families living in Northern Ireland, I would draw the Deputy's attention to the fact that, in order to qualify for any credit provided for in the tax code of the State, an individual has to be within the charge to tax in the State. A person who is resident in Northern Ireland will not, in general, have an entitlement to the tax credit in question and as a consequence will not be in a position to relinquish such a credit to any secondary claimant who may be resident in the State.
In the majority of cases entitlement to the single person child carer credit is not in any way dependent on the payment of child benefit under Part 4 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act, 2005. In allocating the SPCCC, the person who receives the child benefit payment was used as the initial indicator by the Revenue Commissioners to identify the individuals most likely to qualify for the new credit, but it is important to point out that in the majority of cases the child benefit payment is not the determining fact in deciding who can claim the new credit. The credit will in the first place go to the person who cares for the child for most of the year. However, subsection 2(a) of section 462B provides for the particular circumstance where a child is the subject of a court order relating to custody and under that order the child resides with each parent for an equal part of the year of assessment. In those circumstances the subsection provides that the primary claimant is determined as the parent who is in receipt of a child benefit payment.
However, as I have already noted, where the primary claimant is outside of the charge to Irish tax the question of entitlement to the credit does not arise.
