Rent a room 14K tax free scheme to be extended to SW recipients

Probably mentioned already but there is nothing stopping you from availing if the rent a room scheme. In fact you don’t even have to own your own property to avail of it.

Im not sure what this means. I might be reading it wrong but I think this would only apply to those on means tested welfare who own their house/are paying a mortgage? Which seems fairly fine to me

It wouldn't cover those in social housing etc

There is a number of anomalies in the way small LL are treated. First off we pay PRSI on the rental income but it is treated as unearned income. You therefore do not qualify for any social welfare benefits like disability, widow's pension or the old age pension.

Next there is a question of what you can write off in the line of either home improvements or even repairs. If you replace anything with a better quality product you are supposed to put the difference into capital expenditure.

There fore if you replace a teak front door with a PVC one you should only write down the value of the teak door. It's similar with facia and soffit or with windows. A tenant could seriously wreck your house a d you could find it impossible to offset the costs against tax.

You are not supposed to include pre rental expenses. If you decide to do up an old house to rent it and money spend may never be refundable through the tax system.

Revenue will seriously question any expenses you may include for phone, car expenses etc. The RTB is a pain. They have recently upgraded there system and your old login details are no longer available. Not only that it seems they may or may not have your previous details.

It was just by chance I saw the new annual fee which of you do not pay you get surcharged for. Imagine having to request you bill off the phone or electricity company.....and if you did not request it and pay it on time they would surcharge you.

There is a very good reason that small landlords are leaving the system, the present system is a deterrent as well to renting empty properties. A basic bed now is 300+ euro new by the time you add delivery. More and more LL are moving towards expecting tenants to provide there own beds and furniture.

Another bug bear is while a LL cannot legitimately refuse a HAP tenant, insurance companies can discrimate against LL that tent to these tenants and charge them a premium over standard pricing.

There is a huge difference between rental income in rural Ireland and large urban areas. My son is renting in Dublin he pays more for a room than I get for a two bed house.

Only a few years ago there was a move which was going to for e LL to bring rental properties up to A or B rating it was only because of the rental shortages bit was put on the back burner.

Property tax is not allowed against tax. The government at some stage in the future will make us responsible for what ever replaces the TV licience. They were going to make us responsible for water charges.

The whole rental area needs to be radically reformed.

The RTB need to become fit for purpose.

Any tenant/ LL disputes should be heard within 30 days. In the case of appeals by either side to court a three month deposit should be handed over.

If tenants stop paying the rent there should be automatic eviction. If there is an issue over rent the money should paid into an RTB escrow account to prevent tenants not paying after losing a case. No money into escrow account eviction.

Forms for rent reviews etc should be less complicated.

On the taxation side it should be treated like any other business. If PRSI is charged the rent should be treated as earned income.

Legitimate expenses should be allowed. If you have to replace a door or a window you should be allowed to write them off against tax.

If you put the cost of your door towards capital expenditure, then I'd imagine it increases your tax base for CGT purposes later.

The extension of being allowed to write capital improvements off against income would be that you could buy a small derelict property and extend and upgrade it over time, cancelling out the rental income, and end up with a valuable capital asset at the end. Should you sell it, then you would be subject to CGT on the increased amount (less than the higher rate of marginal tax) , but should you leave it to someone in your will, then it would not be. It would be subject to CAT by the person, which might be very little or nothing given personal exemptions.

Some people never miss a trick 😂

Look its a typical FG badly explained scheme which leads to more confusion then actual action but makes for a sound bite (as a former FG voter).

If its what you think it is, it's an absolute joke, but I don't think even they are that stupid

ah thats great news im in social housing so ive 2 rooms i can let out now, yesss quids in.....yippeeee

You're telling me!

I moved over here from wherever with my family and couldn't afford to be here. So I was given a family home.

Then myself and herself became """""""""""""""""""""""separated"""""""""""""""""""" and eventually got a second home too. Been going back and forth between here and wherever I'm from to a holiday home in one of the children's names.

This is great news. If we play it right we can all move home and have gigantic rental income from one of the most broken property markets in the world. Ba dah ba ba baaah, I'm loving it.

It is, you can rent some rooms in your PPR. Thread solved!