Hurry up and fill out your tax return if you earn a few euro...
Self-assessed taxpayers have just days to file but many don’t know what they need to declare
Thousands of people who earn extra income through the new online sharing economy have been warned to file tax returns. Bloggers, dog walkers, social media influencers and Airbnb hosts are now all in the tax net with a deadline for filing returns looming on November 16.
The Revenue is set to reap a record €2.5bn haul from self-assessed taxpayers, whose ranks are often unknowingly swelled by those who earn money online.
Many thousands of people are earning extra income via a host of activities that were unheard of a few years ago such as writing blogs, walking pets and renting out their cars, rooms or bikes online.
Others are earning extra income delivering food through Deliveroo or even giving opinions online to pollsters such as Red C.
Nearly half a million people are due to file a self-assessment return.
The online deadline has been extended by two days to November 16 due to the chaos caused recently by Hurricane Ophelia.
Meanwhile, the cut-off date for filing a paper return has already passed on October 31. But only a handful of people still do that.
‘More and more taxpayers are conducting their business with Revenue online,’ said a spokeswoman.
More than 444,000 income tax returns for 2015 were filed through ROS, the Revenue Online Service.
This was up 5.3% on 2015 with a continuing shift to online payment. Over 90% of timely filers used the electronic route last year.
This year, even more are going online. As of November 3, a total of 317,716 returns were in, Revenue confirmed. Of these, 29,880 were filed on paper with 287,836 online.
With almost 130,000 taxpayers yet to file, the proportion of paper filers has dropped from 10% to just 6% this year.
The ROS and payment support helpdesks will be open until 8pm leading up to the new deadline and will remain open until midnight on November 16.
However, Revenue urged people not to leave it until the last minute as potential penalties are onerous.
Surcharges for late filing of income tax returns range from 5% of the tax due up to 10% if the return is filed more than two months late.
Self-assessed taxpayers face a double whammy this year.
Each year they must file a final return for the previous year and a preliminary sum for the current year. To make things easier, many people simply pay 100% of the previous year’s total as preliminary tax – which is the easiest option.
But when that preliminary figure proves too low, as many now are as incomes rise, they must make up the shortfall the following year.
Accountants taxback.com say this phenomenon is increasing a typical tax bill by 50%.
It’s leading to a bumper €2.5bn Revenue haul from the selfassessed sector compared to €1.9bn last year and €1.4bn the year before.
Many self-assessed newbies such as Airbnb hosts and bloggers aren’t even aware they have to file – and face stiff penalties if they don’t.
‘Our experience has been that when the filing deadline rolls round, lots of people are either completely unaware of their tax filing obligations or are unsure about exactly what they need to do,’ says Barry Flanagan, senior tax manager at taxback.com