From €20 for a kitchen porter to €2476 for an RTE musician...Welcome to the crazy, unfair world of Flat Rate Expenses

Doctors and consultants are allowed to claim €695 in 'flat rate expenses'

Flat Rate Expenses are a lucrative tax break –  if you’re in the right job.

They’re supposed to provide a standard rate of expenses that each job or profession can claim.

It’s hard to do this fairly. Not everyone in the same job has the same expenses. Yet even so, the way it has been done seems unjust.

You could claim hundreds or even thousands every year in some professions. But others, with seemingly just as many work-related expenses, get a pittance.

The whole scheme seems unfair, or random at best, and also classist.

The reasons behind this seem to date back to its origins in the class-ridden mid-20th century, when the local doctor was expected to wear his Sunday best tweeds at all times while working class people earned a pittance and dressed and were treated accordingly.

For example, the lowest Flat Rate Expense is €21 for a kitchen porter, whose work presumably racks up cleaning bills that would be a lot higher than that paltry sum.

It’s hardly worthwhile claiming for such a small and insulting amount.

Fitters, mechanics and panel beaters who pay for their own tools and overalls fare little better at just €85 and €78 respectively for a year's worth of tool-buying and overalls-cleaning.

That’s not going to buy many industrial-sized wrenches or hammers never mind pay for cleaning oily overalls.

For some reason, a parks superintendent gets just €40, while a phlebotomist (someone who draws blood) picks up €50 to keep their uniforms in order, when you might imagine they'd need a bit more than that seeing as blood-stains are the most notorious stains of all.

That’s not much compared to the highest Flat Rate Expense of €2,476-a-year for musicians in RTE orchestras.

The system also seems geared to favour the public sector, or unionised professions. (Pilots for example apparently must be in the Airline Pilot’s Association). Is this because powerful unions kick up on behalf of their members, whereas kitchen porters, for example,  are unlikely to have anyone representing them?

For some reason, a professional valuer – ‘in the valuation office’, i.e. a civil servant - gets €680.

Yet surveyors employed by local authorities, the civil service or Coillte (all under the same employer basically) get €127.

What about surveyors who don’t work for the State and aren’t mentioned?

Doctors or hospital consultants do well (€695) as they’re likely to working in the civil service in a nice ‘middle class profession.

But why should they – and State-employed valuers - get paid 35 times as much as a kitchen porter who is far more likely to get their work clothes dirty or damaged?

And what’s the logic behind a pharmacist getting €400, a teacher €518 – while a ship’s carpenter (to include tools!) gets just €55?

Up until just a few years ago, long into the era of ‘gender equality’, waiters got more than waitresses, although both got a pittance. And before 2023, female cardiac technicians got nearly twice as much as males,

And hardly any of these antiquated allowances have been updated in years despite rampant inflation!

The Revenue Commissioners wanted to abolish much of this bizarre system a few years ago.

      That didn’t happen as it would rightly cause a political backlash.

But why on earth isn’t it reformed to give a fair deal to low paid people who work hard with their hands?

I suspect, it’s because the State would lose millions if kitchen porters and fitters were treated fairly and started claiming what was rightfully theirs. Instead, they understandably ignore their derisory allowance – as our main story this week shows.

Yet if you’re in one of the privileged professions favoured in this creaky old system  - grab the money while you can.

NOTE: When I put this to the Department of Finance a few years ago, it said it was a matter for Revenue to decide. But it pointed out that anyone outside the flat rate expenses system can make a claim for expenses related to their profession.