An Irish Times guide to the world of personal finance. This week's topics include the Budget, the Revenue hurdle and Australia.

Budget

My husband and I have a joint account and each of us has a Laser/ATM card and a Visa card. Could you please clarify the new situation regarding the increased charges? Will the charge be levied on each card or on the account?

Ms M.C., Limerick.

The bit I always like about Budget speeches is where the Minister of the day explains how the Government is taking certain actions to simplify the situation in regard to this or that. The situation with stamp duty on cards in the latest production is an example of how this is more often observed in the breach than in the observance.

Quite simply, whether the duty is levied on the card or the account depends on the type of card. Simple, eh?

In the case of your Visa card, or indeed any other credit card, the charge will be levied on the account and not on the individual cards operating on that account. So in a situation like yours where you and your husband both operate cards on the one account, there will be one charge. To be fair, this has been the case for some time although it is somewhat confused in people's minds because charge cards - such as American Express or Diner's - are charged on the card rather than the account.

In any case, the charge on your Visa will be €40, up from €19 before the Budget. In general, these annual charges are levied in April.

Turning to the Laser and ATM cards, you will face a charge on each card, even though they operate from a common account. In fact, you will face a charge on each function on each card. If you have separate ATM and Laser cards, each will be liable to a €10 charge; if they are on the one card, the charge will be €20. Given you each have a Laser/ATM card that will amount to €40 between you.

Up till now, you were paying a charge of €6.25 per card for your ATM card but you were paying no stamp duty on the Laser function.

So, as a result of Mr McCreevy's Budget moves in this area, you are facing an annual stamp duty bill of €80, compared to a bill of €31.50, a rise of 154 per cent and that's before you sign a single cheque (if you use them) where the charge has almost doubled from eight cents to 15 cents per cheque.

Revenue hurdle

I currently own a Section 23 apartment and have excess losses forward of €45,000. Also I have my own home. Having just got married, we are thinking of buying a new principal private residence and renting out our old house.

Key to this is being able to set off the mortgage interest on my current home against rental income and, of course, I realise I can set the losses on my other rental property against any new net rental income also. I have heard that I have to clear with the Revenue whether I can claim the interest relief on our current home against rental income?

Is this the case, as I understand they will charge me capital gains tax on a proportional basis when I eventually dispose of it in years to come so they are recognising it as an investment property? So why would they not grant me interest relief?

Ms S.G Dublin

You do not have to seek any clearance from the Revenue on claiming interest relief against rental income on your current home once it becomes a rental property. Quite simply, assuming you have a current mortgage on the property and that you are referring to interest arising since the start of this year, you are entitled to set that against rental income once the house is let.

That last bit is the key. You will not be allowed to offset interest on the loan against non-existent rental income in line with the general Revenue rule that pre-letting expenses are not allowable. Therefore, the relief only comes into play once the property is attracting rental income.

One issue to be careful of is the amalgamation of borrowings on property. Apparently, financial institutions are increasingly keen on getting mortgage applicants to amalgamate borrowings into one loan when refinancing. As such, the mortgage would comprise the loan, if any, on the apartment, your current home and the new principal private residence. In that case, you will need to ensure that the capital and interest in relation to each rented property is readily identifiable and traceable back to the original mortgage and be able to persuade Revenue that the amalgamation took place purely for commercial purposes and not as part of any tax avoidance plan.

As you say, the Revenue will levy capital gains tax on the property if and when you sell it on the basis of the proportion of your ownership of the property during which it was not your principal private residence.

Australia

I returned from Australia in May and have paid 29 per cent tax on a working holiday visa while there. Would it be beneficial to me, and am I obliged, to disclose the income earned while there to my inspector of taxes? In the period from January 1st, 2002, to my departure I paid 2,254 Australian dollars tax (at 29 per cent) on Aus$7,698 approx.

Mr O.O'S., Cork

First things first. As an Irish tax resident, you will have to disclose to the Revenue all income earned by you in the tax year, regardless of where this occurred and how much tax has been paid on it.

The Australian system charges tax per dollar earned within its borders. Under the double taxation agreement between Ireland and Australia, you are not going to have any tax returned to you from the Irish authorities in respect of tax paid in Australia although you will be given credit for tax paid there.

Under this, assuming your income pushes you in the 42 per cent marginal income tax band, the State will seek the difference between the 29 per cent paid and the amount due.

The other area to examine is whether you would be eligible for foreign earnings deduction. This is designed to accommodate people constrained to spend long periods of time abroad - minimum 90 days in any 12-month period in blocks of not less than 11 whole days - and allows them to deduct those earnings from their income for tax purposes. It covers foreign tenure with the exception of time spent in the United Kingdom, which is covered by the less generous cross-border working allowance.

However, this is designed for people whose absences from the State are connected with their employment and I am not sure that your situation would fall under that description. My instinct is that it would not.

• Please send your queries to Dominic Coyle, Q&A, The Irish Times, D'Olier Street, Dublin 2 or e-mail to dcoyle@irish-times.ie. This column is a reader service and is not intended to replace professional advice. Due to the volume of mail, there may be a delay in answering queries. All suitable queries will be answered through the columns of the newspaper. No personal correspondence will be entered into.