Are you claiming for your Sports Club membership?

Many of our clients play a sport or are a member of a gym. Typically January is the month the membership is due. The majority of our clients have private health insurance (VHI, Irish Life Health, Laya, etc). If you have paid for membership, and you have private health insurance, read the terms of your policy – many will contribute €50 per person on the policy towards this membership.

That could be worth several hundred euro say for a family with 3 children who are in a club of any description. Irish Life Health certainly have this and their on-line claims app is really easy to use, so do check your policy out.

Is cashflow getting tight – Having trouble collecting
your debtors?

The start of the year can be tight for many clients, as they are faced with paying the tax bill of December bonus’s or vouchers, plus paying the November/December VAT, and couple that with lower sales, January and February can be a tricky period.

If you are having trouble collecting your debtors, or you merely wish to put a gap between you/the sales function and the debt collection function, we can help you.
A member of the team here offers dedicated debt collection for many of our clients, and is very successful and committed – she doesn’t give up. Please give Carmel a call and she can discuss your needs or mail: cglennon@guardianma.ie.

Continued tax break
for electric cars

Once again the Government have confirmed they are maintaining the Benefit-in-Kind relief up to €45,000 value on electric cars. This is great news for drivers, and in addition companies can continue to avail of the accelerated capital allowances in year 1 of up to €24,000.

This coupled with a serious drop in many new car prices, and more entrants to the market such as MG and BYD offering low entry costs is good news for anyone looking to buy a new electric car. For existing owners, these price drops have caused an alarming drop in value of their existing cars. Not good news. We’ll continue to keep you updated.

Do I need to register for VAT?

VAT Thresholds – increased to €40k services and €80k goods commencing
January 1st, 2024.

Have you money to put on Deposit? – Look abroad for
better rates

Under the single market Irish savers can deposit their hard-earned cash in any EU bank and enjoy the same interest rates as their French or Latvian counterparts. But, is it safe? Bureaucratic? Financially worth it? And where’s the catch? Raisin is a platform that partners with banks across Europe providing savings accounts. Customers can filter for term length, interest rate and S&P credit rating.

Right now, Raisin is offering 3.65% interest on a 1yr deposit term with TF bank in Sweden. At 3.65% interest you’d be €65 better off a year on a €10K investment v’s the highest yield savings account currently on the Irish market – AIB at 3%.

Alternatively, Trade Republic is an investment platform allowing you to buy stocks and shares. However, it pays out 4% interest on any uninvested cash (up to €50K) transferred to the platform. Hold €10K and you’d be €100 a year better off than with AIB. There’s no term length and it’s instant access so you withdraw at any time.

Both Raisin & Trade republic are regulated by Irish Central Bank and ECB respectively and crucially fall under the European Deposit Guarantee Scheme which insures up to €100K held per person per bank in case of a bank default.

Setting up an account is easy; register via the app with a photo of your passport and utility bill, verify your identity with a video and you’ll be up and running within 24 hrs, pending checks.

The catch? DIRT! Irish residents are subject to 33% tax on interest accrued on savings no matter where those savings are held. If held in Ireland AIB, BOI etc will deduct DIRT on your behalf but in this case it’s your responsibility to declare & pay this tax to Revenue – make sure to inform us of this when we’re completing your income tax return.

How much can you earn and still qualify for a medical card?

There have been recent changes in the evaluation process, under which a number of our clients have now received a medical card, even though they are earning what would be considered “good money”.

The online application process includes a quick assessment of your finances. This will let you know if you might qualify for a medical card. It is based on basic income and expenses information. A full assessment is carried out later in the application process. You will need to upload documents showing income and expenses. For example, payslip, proof of social welfare payment, childcare costs, etc.

Your qualifying financial threshold is the amount you can earn a week and still qualify for a card.

How the HSE calculate this

Your qualifying financial threshold is calculated by adding the following 3 amounts:

• A basic rate – an amount of money depending on your circumstances.
• The amount allocated for each dependent.
• The amount for allowable expenses.

The 3 amounts are added together to give you a qualifying financial threshold. This figure is the maximum amount you can earn as your net weekly income in order to qualify for a medical card.

Log on to www.hse.ie, click on medical cards, click on Applying for a medical card and follow the instructions – it’s a good site and the process is user friendly