The Government is planning to target stay-at-home mothers with a new Revenue charge that has been condemned as being like ‘a tax on mothers’, according to a report in the Irish Independent.

This is on top of tax individualisation, which can cost single income families up to €6,240 more than a family with two incomes taking in the same amount of money.

During the last election, all the main parties supported increasing the Home Carers Allowance after a paper published by the Iona Institute showed that the Government’s tax individualisation scheme was unfair to single income couples.

The paper, called Tax Individualisation: Time for a Critical Rethink, was written by barrister John Paul Byrne, with the foreword written by Labour Finance Spokesperson Joan Burton.

Women who have made up to €15,000 a year minding other people’s children without having to pay any form of tax will now be charged a flat rate PRSI charge of €253.

Some 30,000 mothers currently mind the children of others in their own homes.

Tax experts have expressed surprise at the move. “I never heard of anyone getting demands from the Department of Social Welfare or Social Protection as it is now known or the Revenue for this PRSI,” Cathal Maxwell of the paylesstax.ie website told the Independent.

However, both the Department of Social Protection and the Revenue claim that the fact that PRSI would now be collected from self-employed childminders by the Revenue, instead of the department was the only change.

A spokesperson confirmed that income from childminding in the home up to €15,000 has been exempt from income tax since Budget 2007.

“Initially income was exempt from both tax and PRSI, but a flat rate of €253 per annum, equivalent to the minimum rate for self-employed contributors was subsequently introduced,” a spokeswoman said.

“The only difference for the 2009 tax year is that Revenue will be billing contributors for their PRSI liability rather than the Department of Social and Family Affairs.”

However, neither department was forthcoming about when the decision to impose PRSI on child-minding mothers was made.

Those who mind children will not be entitled to jobseeker’s benefit if the work they are engaged in dries up, despite the fact they have to pay PRSI.

They will be entitled to build up payments towards a state pension, however.

Mr Maxwell likened the move to that of a tax on mothers, but added that it would help childminders get a pension.

“This could actually be a good thing for the people involved as for paying a flat sum of €253 per annum in PRSI presumably one gets full entitlement to contributory old-age pension which would be a very good investment,” Mr Maxwell explained.

Patricia Murray, chief executive of Childminding Ireland, said it was important that self-employed childminders had an opportunity to get a state contributory pension.

Most parents pay between €100 and €200 a week to have a child minded in someone else’s home.