Revenue Job Assist (Special Categories)

Section 472A TCA 1997 provides tax relief to encourage the long-term unemployed to take up employment and also gives an incentive to employers to employ such individuals. These measures are known as Revenue Job Assist.

The legislation contains a provision whereby a member of a special category of persons can qualify for the relief if that special category of persons has been approved, for the purposes of Section 472A TCA 1997, by the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs with the consent of the Minister for Finance.

This approval has now been sanctioned in respect of the following categories of persons with effect from the 1 January 2006:

1. Individuals in receipt of Disability Benefit for a continuous period (of at least three years);
2. Individuals in receipt of Invalidity Pensions for a continuous period (of a least one year); and
3. Individuals released from prison (periods spent in prison are deemed equivalent to periods of unemployment).

In effect, the relief has now been extended to include the above categories of persons as “qualifying individuals” for the purposes of the Job Assist Scheme.

Prisoners released under the Good Friday Agreement as and from the 31 July 1998 have already been sanctioned by the Minister and added to the list of qualifying individuals. Please note, however, that the period spent in prison will have to be a continuous period of at least 12 months for both categories of prisoners.