Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

To ask the Minister for Social Protection the way in which superannuation is defined when determining the net wage of a person applying for family income supplement and the way in which additional voluntary contributions to pension funds are treated as part of the assessment process, that is, are AVCs reckonable as a deductible expense in determining the net wage of the applicant; if the entitlement to various tax reliefs, is routinely crosschecked as part of the family income supplement application process as a means of limiting the total expenditure on this scheme; if not, the reason for same; and if the new local property tax will be a deductible expense for the purposes of determining the net wage of a family income supplement applicant. [1870/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Family Income Supplement (FIS) is designed to provide support for people with families who are on low earnings. This preserves the incentive for them to remain in employment in circumstances where they might only be marginally better off than if they were claiming other social welfare payments.

FIS is calculated on the basis of 60% of the difference between the income limit for the family size and the net income of the person(s) raising the child(ren). Net income for FIS purposes comprises total family income less income tax, employee PRSI, universal social charge (USC) and pension contributions (including superannuation and additional voluntary contributions AVCs).

For FIS purposes, weekly family income is defined in Section 227 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act, 2005, as the amount of income received in a week by a family less, inter alia, any allowable contributions referred to in Regulations 41 and 42 of the Income Tax (Employments) (Consolidated) Regulations 2001. Accordingly, any pension contribution is excluded from the definition of weekly family income for the purposes of determining entitlement to FIS.

FIS applicants are required to provide a P60 or recent payslips in support of their applications. If there is doubt about the applicant’s tax credit entitlement the customer may be contacted regarding this issue and requested to contact Revenue and/or to furnish a recent tax credits certificate. However it should be noted that each individual’s entitlement to tax credits and reliefs is a matter for the Revenue Commissioners.

There is no provision in Social Welfare legislation to allow for the exclusion of the local property tax from weekly family income for FIS purposes. Accordingly the local property tax will not be deductible from gross income when calculating net weekly family income.