Irish Credit Card Stamp Duty’s Uncovered.
Posted in Finance on August 4th, 2009 by Peter Carville – Be the first to commentIreland is the only country that has a credit card stamp duty. A stamp duty is a tax the government imposes on certain legal documents. The word “stamp” is a holdover from the days when an actual physical stamp was attached to a document to prove that the duty had been paid. The stamp duty on Irish credit cards and charge cards is for ?30 per year per account. Charge cards are like credit cards except there is no interest because you pay it off at the end of the month.
It is important to note that multiple cards attached to one account, such as an account where both spouses have a copy of the credit card, only one stamp duty is imposed. If you transfer a credit card account from one issuer to another, you can avoid paying the stamp duty again as long as you close the old account and have documentation from the account you’re closing saying so.
If only a quarter of the credit cards in Ireland were attached to unique accounts, it would add up to over ?20 million in credit card stamp duty income per year. In 2007,Ireland had more than double the amount of cards that it had in 1997, this is more than 2.3 million credit cards in circulation.