Credit Card Stamp Duty

doh.ie

Before I launch into a tirade on how much I hate the current goverment, particularly for taxation measures like this one, I'd better take a deep breath...

I'm wondering if anyone knows what became of last December's budget plan to "to eliminate a double stamp duty charge on financial cards where a person is merely switching from one provider to another." (Source: RTE News: http://www.rte.ie/news/features/budget2005/speech16.html)

I asked my bank (BOI) about cancelling my card with them last month, before the government was due to take its stamp duty charge for 2004/5 (it's done in arrears apparently.) I was moving to a rival card which was offering points per purchase, which made more sense - even with the €40 charge, there was a chance of getting that back by cashing the points in for DVDs, CDs etc.
I was told by BOI *not* to do this, as I would, in fact, be charged another €40 to cancel at that point. Hmm. "OK", I said, "I'll leave it for now."

I was told to call back in April and they would know more than about how Cowen's plan on avoiding the double tax would be implemented then. I call back a week ago and lo and behold, I'm informed that once again, I'll be charged €40 to cancel and they now know NOTHING about his plan to remove the second round of charges. (Of course, in the meantime, I've now been hit on both cards for the €40 charge.)

Anyone have any ideas what became of the glorious plan to remove the charge on switching of cards? I've yet to find anyone who has more than one Irish-based card who hasn't been hit for €40 on each of them.

I was never a FF voter, but the tax-anywhere-we-can approach from this government has made me so angry, I'll never even consider it. I use my credit card over Laser a lot (Laser charge per use, but there's no such charge on the credit card) and as long as I pay it off in full each month, it works out best. I can increase those points and try to recoup something of the €40 that vanishes into the ether each April...

Anyway, if anyone knows what happened to the budget plan or can tell if it sounds like I've been had, I'd appreciate it!

hussey

Yeah I rang up a rival CC company and they told me the same thing,I was gonna cancel in march and switch over, they told me if I used their CC in march I'd have to pay two lots of stamp duty

the person on the phone told me there was talk of it, but it has not been implemented yet

doh.ie

If this charge was on a per-month usage, maybe there'd be some sense to it (so you wind up only being charged €3.30 for a card issued in March), but as it stands, it's just the most evil piece of government taxation ever.

Checked in with a company again today - they said it's all about the number of accounts open at any one time. Idiots, that's *not* what I was told a month ago.

parsi

Go to www.revenue.ie and click on "hot topics" - it's all there. Takes effect on 1 January 2006

Sometimes it pays to go to the Horse's Mouth.

doh.ie

Cheers. It is all there, yet clearly the banks didn't have a clue what they were on about. Idiots.