Tax - Jointly assessed

novaboy80

Hi, my wife and I have decided to investigate which option will work best for us with regards taxation and how we're assessed.

I can see from both our myaccount profiles that we are indeed been taxed as a married couple but I can't seem to find out "how" we are been assessed, be it separately, jointly or the other one.

Can this be viewed online?

downtheroad

Always choose joint assessment, there is no downside to it.

Try completing your tax return, only the assessable spouse in a jointly assessed couple should be able to do so.

Otherwise call Revenue and ask.

the_amazing_raisin

If you can "see" your wife's income details from your account page then you are jointly assessed

I think if you don't do anything you're down as seperate treatment, which is the worst option because you can't transfer any tax credits between you

Joint assessment means they effectively tax you both as if you were one person. Some, but not all, tax credits can be divided between you

The MyAccount page is pretty good at figuring out how to divide them up, if you know both your salaries you can input them and it'll try to find the best divide

Now, one slight drawback is that you will complete one tax return for both of you and receive one balancing statement

If money is owed to you (or if you owe extra tax) it can be pretty head wrecking to trace down who gets what. You can split it evenly but my wife and I had situations where I effectively underpaid tax (yay for incompetent payroll) and she overpaid.

So my wife effectively subsided me and got no tax refund, she wasn't terribly pleased

Joint assessment tends to be of maximum benefit if one of you earns significantly more than the other one

If you're both on the higher rates of tax and earn pretty similar salaries then it might be worth looking at Seperate Assessment within Joint Assessment

This is sort of a middle ground where you can still allocate tax credits and bands among you, but you still do seperate tax returns each year

In any case, you'll need to contact revenue to change your assessment status. I think this can be done through MyEnquiries now, you'll need your partner's name and PPS number

novaboy80

Thanks so much for the info, as my wife is on increments and now her salary is about to surpass mine it's looking as though she will be on the higher rate of tax and I will be on the lower, so whatever benefits our family income the best is what I will opt for if course.

I can see from my preliminary income tax on myaccount that I have a considerable amount of overpaid tax, if I were to alter our assessment basis today am I correct in thinking that this change will not come into affect until next year and therefore will not affect any potential tax refund I may have been entitled to since 2019?

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121162899#Comment_121162899

If you both earn more than €40,000 in 2023 you won't notice any difference in net pay with joint assessment.

If you earn less than €40k and she earns more, you will pay less tax by being jointly assessed.

Any tax overpayment due to you for 2019-2022 will not be affected by changing to joint assessment.

Revenue will not allow you to do joint assessment in 2023 as you missed the 31 March cut off. Best you can do now is apply for joint assessment from 2024.

novaboy80

Thankyou all for your help.