There’s not a day goes by when the tax experts at Red Oak don’t spot an error with somebody’s tax – whether they’ve made it themselves or it’s the fault of their employer or Revenue – mistakes are common and can have a huge impact on your possible refund. Here are the top 5 mistakes people can make with their tax!

1. Assuming the Information that Revenue has for you is correct

This is the most common mistake! And, more often than not, the error results in Revenue incorrectly believing that the customer owes them money!

This is a big issue, particularly if you don’t know what you’re looking at, and just assume that Revenue has the whole picture. Things like Social Welfare payments and Medical Cards can fall through the gaps as the sharing of information between Government departments is not as seamless as you would think.

2. Thinking only mum can claim the Single Parent Tax Credit

In Brief: You are eligible for the One Parent (or Single Parent) Tax Credit if you are a parent not living with a partner and your dependent child lives with you at least part of the year. Up until 2014, both parents can claim this tax credit so long as they are not co-habiting with another partner/spouse.

What we see a lot is that men, in particular, are terrible for claiming this tax credit and more often than not it is because they are concerned that it will impact on the mother’s Social Welfare entitlements. But, for 2013 and prior – it doesn’t!

3. Not claiming all your eligible Medical Expenses

Claiming medical expenses is straightforward, right? Wrong! Many people are actually missing out on claiming substantial expenses.

It’s common enough these days for people to travel abroad for medical treatment and major dental. All of these can still be claimed for back in Ireland, so long as they fall under the eligible treatments list.

What’s more, the medical expenses you claim for don’t have to be just for yourself. If you have paid for any eligible expenses – whether it is for yourself or for someone else (so long as they don’t claim it also) – you can claim those too!

4. Missing out on refunds for your Job

There are literally over 200 different jobs that you can claim expenses for. This means that these expenses will be deducted from your income before your tax is calculated – meaning a nice handy refund if you haven’t been claiming this!

Revenue sets Flat Rate Expenses for a whole range of occupations that can be claimed – basically, so long as your job is not sitting in front of a computer all day, you should be covered by some sort of expense and that reduces how much tax you pay.

5. Ignoring the problem

Hoping it will go away is not the solution! So many people procrastinate over taxes and more of us are fearful that there could be something ugly lurking there that we don’t want to know about!

However, if it does turn out that you owe Revenue money, it’s better to find out sooner rather than later before it becomes an even larger amount of money!

In these situations, we go through all the options with our clients and will try and find ways to reduce the amount owed often through claiming other eligible credits and reliefs. Quite often, we’ve managed to turn this around to secure our customers a refund instead.

To see if you are due a tax refund, apply here.

Written by Sarah Haughney

I’m the Tax Manager at Red Oak. We know you’ve got better things to do in your spare time than chase paperwork. That’s why, as a qualified accountant, I ensure my team gets the largest refunds possible for all our clients.