Sir, – As a self-employed person, I need a tax-clearance certificate each year. For some bizarre reason, the state agency I work for stops payments to me several weeks before the previous year’s tax-clearance certificate runs out.
Although my accounts were submitted well within the deadline of October 31st (tax paid and my current account debited within hours), I still have not received a tax-clearance certificate, which means all payments to me are blocked.
I have not been paid since September 19th and have no idea when I will be. Tax clearance should issue automatically so that self-employed people are not left without income for many weeks. This can put us out of business.
I really dread this time of year, every year, because state agencies make things so unnecessarily difficult and complicated.
Our public servants have no consideration whatsoever for struggling self-employed people. – Yours, etc,
JOHN BRADY,
Phibsborough,
Dublin 7.