Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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212. To ask the Minister for Finance to review the single person child carer credit, SPCCC, for a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24585/16]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The Single Person Child Carer Credit (SPCCC) replaced the One-Parent Family Tax Credit (OPFTC) with effect from 1 January 2014.  It operates differently from the One-Parent Family Credit in that it is available in the first instance only to the Primary Claimant.

The Primary Claimant is the individual with whom the child resides for the whole or greater part of the year.  The Primary Claimant must be either the child's parent or the individual who has custody of the child and who maintains the child at his or her own expense for the whole or the greater part of the year.

As I have pointed out before, it is essential to review all tax reliefs, credits and incentives in order to ensure that they are properly targeted and, if necessary, re-focused in order that they can achieve the socio-economic objectives that are set for them. A system which allowed, under the OPFTC, multiple claims in respect of the same child was unsustainable.

The Commission on Taxation acknowledged that the previous One Parent Family Tax Credit played a role in supporting and incentivising the labour market participation of single and widowed parents. However, in its recommendations it concluded that the credit should be retained but that it should be allocated to the primary carer only. The restructuring of the credit into the SPCCC achieves such an outcome.

It is possible for a qualifying Primary Claimant to surrender (relinquish) his or her entitlement to the credit in favour of a Secondary Claimant where the child resides with that Secondary Claimant for at least 100 days per year. It should be noted that a Secondary Claimant does not qualify for the SPCCC in his/her own right. Rather it is the primary carer of the child who is entitled to the credit, subject to meeting the qualifying criteria, and, should he/she choose, may subsequently surrender the credit to a Secondary Claimant who has care of the child for at least 100 days in a year. Where the child's primary carer is married, in a civil partnership or cohabiting they would not be entitled to the SPCCC (or indeed the former credit), on the basis that the relevant child is not, in the main, being cared for by a single person. In such circumstances the Primary Claimant cannot relinquish the credit to a secondary carer.

I am advised by Revenue that in the case concerned, as the Primary Claimant has remarried, then the Secondary Claimant has no entitlement to the claim. However should the Secondary Claimant become the primary carer of the child in the future, he/she may be entitled to apply for the SPCCC in his/her own right.