Nov 25, 2011 - 08:45

Hidden Money.... You might be sitting on thousands and not even know it!

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What would you do with an additional €500? Or perhaps as we saw in one case an extra €8,000 that you didn't know you were due?

With an austerity budget due on the 6^th of December there has never been a better time to get your financial house in order. And in our opinion there is no better place to start than to spend a few minutes making sure that you get back every penny you are owed.
So who's the creditor we are talking about? Who is going to potentially give you back a chunk of money? The combined forces of MyHome.ie and Irish Mortgage Brokers will tell you how....
What we are describing is called a 'P21 Balancing Review', it is something that PAYE workers can do and by filing you go back over the last 4 years and claim back any money that you may be due for various allowable expenses.
Do you rent? If so, that could instantly mean up to €1,600 (20% of €2,000 for the last 4 years). Did you go to a doctor or dentist over that time? Did you pay bin fees? Again, all of these are available at the 20% band.
The four main credits are:

Medical Expenses
Rent Relief
Service Charges (bin charges etc.)
Flat rate expense

The Revenue Commissioners don't even have an estimate for what is unclaimed but what they can tell us is that in the years from 2006 to 2010 they gave back a whopping €800,000,000.00 to people who claimed back their taxes!

As many of you know, I'm also the director of accountancy firm Advisors.ie and we just finished a very busy Self Employed tax deadline period, but for those of you who don't have non PAYE income you can do a return as well – and unlike the self employed there is NO DEADLINE or penalty involved based upon when you file.

This service can be carried out for you by an accountant, or you can do it yourself by looking up the

IT1 tax credits on the Revenue website and then registering for 'PAYE Anytime'.

PAYE Anytime is the individual equivalent of the ROS (Revenue Online Service) that accountants use to file Self Employed returns (form 11's) and various other tax filing requirements.

Tom Kelly from The Revenue Commissioners says that 'PAYE Anytime is a huge technological and customer service advance for our PAYE taxpayers, has made the business of claiming reliefs much quicker and easier for all concerned. Helping the taxpaying public to claim their entitlements is a central part of Revenue's Strategy'. You might find it hard to believe, but Revenue don't actually want your money (at least not the part that isn't due to them anyway!).

There are companies that will do this for you and they charge a percentage of whatever they claim back. So don't have any excuse, if you haven't done your P21 Balancing statement then do it before 2011 is finished, because if you wait until next year you can only go back to 2008, whereas doing it now means you can go back to 2007.

Karl Deeter

(Twitter @karldeeter)