A stamp duty is a tax the government imposes on certain legal documents. 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. 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. Ireland is the only country that has a credit card stamp duty.
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.
However, with debit laser cards and ATM cards the duty is affixed on every card rather than every account. For these cards, the tax is ?10 on every ATM card or debit laser card, or ?20 annually on every combined Laser/ATM card.
While you may complain at having to prove that you have previously forked out for the credit card stamp duty once this year if you’ve swapped cards, or if you think that it’s too much bother, just imagine the amount of extra money that the Irish Government would receive if more people thought like you, ?30 million in a year for no good reason.
Same thing with the duties on ATM and debit laser cards. If nobody bothered disputing the stamp duty if they switched cards after having paid the tax for the year, the government would rake in an extra ?10 million. There’s no sense in trying to get out of paying the stamp duty, but at the same time there’s no reason for you to pay it twice in a year if you don’t have to.