Revenue Briefs and other tax news week ending 05/01/2020

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Revenue has released several Tax brief after coming from the Christmas break:

Briefing covering deduction of fees and expenses incurred in the performance of the duties of an employment:

• eBrief No. 004/20: General Rule as to Deduction for Expenses in Employment. It covers in detail general rules that should be used to consider if the expense is allowable under law and the taxpayer can claim it free of tax or not, with all the consequences from the point of view of emoluments if it is not an allowable expense. It is quite thorough in the rules with different examples about what it is and is not allowed along with references to other ebriefs dealing with other items such as travel expenses and membership fees (this one updated as well and below in the list)
• eBrief No. 001/20: Deduction for statutory registration fees paid to the Health and Social Care Professionals Council (CORU). It covers the deduction of registration fees as this registration is a requirement by law for several profesions listed in the briefing. More specific than the rules in the previous ebrief. 
• eBrief No. 003/20: Deduction for Expenses in Respect of Annual Membership Fees Paid to a Professional Body. It covers flat rate expenses, profesional membership fees and expenses that are paid by employers to employees and whether they should be taxed or not. Again more specific than the first ebriefing in the list.

A couple of briefings have been retired as under the Safety, Health & Welfare at Work Act 2005 protective clothing and equipment must be provided by the employer.

• eBrief No. 002/20: Uniform and Clothing Allowances paid to Fire Officers. These allowances are no longer permitted as it is the employer the one providing these items to employees

Finally, there has been an update to the guidance in relation to the deductibility of provisions and accruals to align the guidance with recent updates to accounting standards. It is very thorough going through all the different standards applying to Ireland in the last 20 years approximately and I must said, as newly qualified that has barely had any contact with the old FRS standards, a little bit of a trip to the past. 

• eBrief No. 006/20: Provisions and Accruals

The last ebrief deals with clarifications relating to the payment of welfare benefit increases for a qualified adult and their tax treatment for payments for made for the tax year 2014 and onwards.

• eBrief No. 005/20: Certain benefits payable under Social Welfare Acts - increase for qualified adult