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21st February 2018
05:54pm GMT
The Irish Mirror is reporting that over half of the country is missing out on big tax refunds because they don't claim routine medical expenses.
Just under 60% of Irish people did not claim tax refunds for medical expenses that occurred in the last four years according to a survey by Taxback.com.
The survey states that these medical expenses are “probably the most widely known of all tax refunds” but thousands of euro goes unclaimed each year.
One of the reasons that the tax is not claimed is because people find the process to be too time consuming and basically they don't think it'd be worth the effort.
Senior Tax Manager Barry Flanagan said: "Thousands of euro worth of medical and non-routine dental expense refunds, while probably the most widely known of all tax refunds, still go unclaimed every year.
"The reasons for this are varied but feedback from clients suggests that they believe the process is too complex and time consuming.
"I can understand why people might think this – anything to do with tax & form filling tends to make people’s eyes glaze over, but in reality this is one of the most straightforward things you’ll ever do.
"In terms of 'personal admin', I would say it's easier than shopping online.
If they have not done this to request copies of receipts from the GP/ chemist etc. – some practices charge a small fee for this but that should not be prohibitive i.e. you’re still going to get back more than you’ve spent.
"In addition, most pharmacies will be able to give you a “year-end” receipt, totalling your spending during the year. Some are even promoting this as a means of keeping customers."
