Staycation vouchers to encourage domestic holidays
Ireland’s tourism and hospitality industries have been decimated by the pandemic and the resultant nosedive in international flight numbers.
With that in mind, the stimulus package attempts to focus on making the most of the fact people are now set to holiday at home in their droves in the form of the Stay and Spend Incentive - the staycation grant, which works as a tax rebate on holiday bills.
That will see any taxpayer spending over €625 on accommodation, food and drink on such a holiday between October of this year and next April able to claim back up to €125 via a tax credit. For a couple, the figure is double at €250.
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- Financial Certainty through the Enterprise Wage Support Scheme, Pandemic Unemployment Scheme, Rates waivers etc.
- €500m investment in communities
- Stay and Spend initiative #JobsStimulus https://t.co/rt6bvf7aab pic.twitter.com/YRt5IBgsQS
That measure will be coupled with a €10m restart fund for the tourism sector, along with a new €10m performance support scheme for the culture sector to aid in “planning for events in the context of Covid-19”.
Meanwhile, for first-time house-buyers the help-to-buy scheme - which offers relief on the purchase of new builds in the form of income tax refunds - will be expanded from €20,000 to €30,000 at a cost of €18m.