Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 17 December 2015
152. Deputy Michael McGrath asked the Minister for Finance the cost of extending the home carers tax credit to cohabiting couples with dependent children; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45980/15]
View answerAs the Deputy may be aware, Section 466A of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 provides for the Home Carer Tax Credit. As increased in Budget 2016 the amount of the credit is €1,000. It is claimable by married persons or civil partners who are jointly assessed to tax and where one spouse or civil partner works at home, caring for children, aged or incapacitated persons, and that spouse or civil partner's income is not in excess of €7,200. A reduced credit is provided if income is between €7,200 and €9,200. The credit is reduced by half of the excess over €7,200.
I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that, with the data available to the Commissioners, there is no basis on which to develop an estimate of the costing requested by the Deputy to extend the credit to cohabiting couples with dependent children.
A wide range of statistical information is available on the Revenue Commissioners' statistics webpage: http://www.revenue.ie/en/about/statistics/index.html. It may be of interest to the Deputy that the latest information on the cost and numbers benefiting from 'Home carer Credit' can be found at http://www.revenue.ie/en/about/statistics/costs-tax-expenditures.pdf. The latest full year for which information is available is 2013. Updates for 2014 will be published in due course.
