The last few years have seen a significant challenge to our parish finances. The periods when the church was closed during COVID saw a marked drop in our collections, and like everyone else the parish is faced with increasing energy prices and various other costs.
We are also very aware that a lot of people who contribute to our collections may be facing financial challenges of their own at this time. In response to this situation, we will be bringing in the Tax Rebate Scheme in January. This is a way of increasing the value of your donation without increasing the amount.
Put simply, the system means that if any taxpayer gives €250 or more in a given year, the parish can get back some of the tax you have paid in that year from the revenue. In round figures, we can claim back 45% of what you donate. So, if you give €250 a year, we can get back €112 from revenue, which means that the €250 is now worth €362 to the parish. An annual amount of €350 would give us a rebate of €157.5 and a totalof €507.5, and so on. The bigger the amount donated, the more the parish can claim back.
Two important points to note are:
- It won’t increase the amount of tax you have to pay to revenue. The rebate comes from tax you have already paid anyway.
- You can’t claim the tax back for yourself. It can only be claimed by a registered charity, which applies to the parish.
In order to claim the tax back, the parish must have a record of your donation, and the way this is done in most parishes is by way of weekly donation envelopes. We will explain that system in more detail in next week’s bulletin.