New Year, New Taxes

2012 is upon us ... and the Irish government has hit us with a bunch of new taxes to have fun with. Many will have at least a knock-on effect on tourism, like the household rate just introduced. Others will have you reaching deeper into your pockets rights away, like (once more) hiked fuel prices. Or the raise in Value Added Tax from 21% to a whopping 23%.

But for non-EU tourists this latter cloud has at least a silver lining - did you know that you may claim the VAT back on goods exported? So your new Aran sweater might become 18.7% cheaper by filling in some forms ...