Dominic Coyle answers your financial questions:

Timing of SSIA maturity dates

You will probably be inundated with queries regarding SSIAs following the recent query in Q&A. I made my first payment to First Active on July 2nd, 2001 and was then notified that the commencement date of my SSIA was July 25th, 2001.

Over the period, my monthly payments have been taken from my bank account on the 7th of each month but only credited to my SSIA account on the 27th of each month. Where is my money for the best part of each month?

However, what has now really annoyed me is that I have received a letter from First Active informing me that my SSIA will mature on the July 31st, 2006. This is five years and 20 days from the date of my first payment. When is five years not five years?

I phoned the branch office and asked to speak to the individual who signed the letter, but he was not available. I left a message for him to phone but, as of the time of writing, I have not had the courtesy of a reply.

Have I any way of ensuring that I receive my funds by the end of June 2006 at the latest? I would be grateful for any advice or assistance in this matter.

Mr V.C., Dublin

You wonder when five years actually means five years. Unfortunately, in this case, it is not down to the banks at all but to the legislation. It states that a Special Savings Incentive Account (SSIA) will mature on the fifth anniversary of the end of the month in which it was first opened.

In your case, the SSIA was opened in July 2001 and therefore it will mature at the end of July 2006. The fact that you opened the account at the start of the month is simply a case of bad timing.

However, I would be slightly concerned that it took First Active more than three weeks to "commence" the account. I have not yet got a firm answer but I suspect that the commencement date is the date on which your payment is registered. Had the bank been a couple of days slower, you might have found yourself waiting a further month for your money under the terms of the legislation.

This brings us to the issue of the delay in crediting payments to your account. I understand that the payments came from an account in a financial institution other than First Active, but it is incredible that they can take almost three weeks to move money from an account in one institution in the State to another.

You ask where the money is for the intervening period and the answer is, quite simply, enriching the relevant financial institution - in this case, First Active.

It will argue that it needs to activate the standing order or direct debit in time to ensure the money actually clears the system and gets into the account by the 27th of the month. Any delay could render invalid your SSIA, although that is an extreme case scenario. However, there is still no excuse for taking 20 days to move money through the Irish clearing system.

Finally, First Active clearly has some work to do on customer relations. The financial services sector spends considerable time and money trying to persuade customers and potential customers that they will be better served by moving their business from Bank A to Bank B.

Unfortunately, all too often the standard of service tends to diminish once the ink on your signature on the transfer documents dries. Often it is down to little more than over-stretched and under-resourced branches, but that is their problem. You are quite right to expect the courtesy of a reply to what is a reasonable customer query.

Tax credits erased

My wife is a secondary school teacher and is paid every two weeks, which is standard in the teaching profession. Her normal gross tax is usually €88 every two weeks. The first payment of 2006 saw €550 deducted. We called the payroll section of the Department of Education who said that it was nothing to do with them and that we should call the tax office.

Apparently, my wife's €4,511 tax credits had been erased with hundreds, possibly thousands of other teachers' tax credits. The net result is that many teachers after Christmas are having nearly 10 times the level of tax deducted!

The tax office admitted to me that it was a big problem for teachers and that we, like many others, would have to live with having 42 per cent deducted for several more salary payments. Apparently there is a big backlog.

In my wife's case she will pay €470 extra tax every two weeks until the Revenue Commissioners sort it out.

How many teachers with a family, a mortgage to pay and bills to settle after Christmas can live with having 42 per cent deducted incorrectly? Why were many hundreds of teachers' tax credits erased from the December - January payroll? A computer glitch?

Why did the Department of Education not alert teachers in the January 5th payslip about this problem?

Mr D.S., Kerry

It's hardly the ideal way to start the new year, especially when, as you say, families are contending with higher than usual bills after the Christmas period.

Having said that, it appears the problem is more one of communication than anything else. Yes, there was a minor problem at the Revenue that saw a number of people have their tax credits taken away. However, the number is relatively minor. The best guess by Revenue is that around 300 cases have surfaced from the roughly two million members of the Irish workforce - and they are spread across all areas, not confined to teachers.

While it is little consolation to those receiving a very rude shock on opening the January payslips, it is an isolated issue and apparently a matter of a human input error rather than a software glitch as such.

You should not have been told that it would take a considerable time to sort out or that there was a backlog - when I contacted Revenue on your behalf, there was no backlog and your wife's details were corrected very quickly. It sounds as though someone on a helpline did not know exactly what the problem was and simply played for time.

The Department of Education could not have informed people about the problem on January 5th for the very simple reason that it would have known nothing about it at that time. The PAYE payments system is pretty efficiently automated.

For anyone who has yet to be contacted by the Revenue, the problem should be rectified in the next week and people will receive their correct statement of credits in the post. The 2006 batch is being posted from next week.

Stamp duty

Can you please clarify the situation on stamp duty payable by a first-time buyer (owner-occupier) on the sale of an apartment of less than 125sq m within five years of purchase (with no rental income). The Revenue website states no duty is payable - contrary to your recent article.

Mr A.F., email

Hardly the most auspicious start to 2006. You are quite correct that there is no clawback of stamp duty for first-time owner-occupiers in cases where the property is sold to an unrelated third party during the five years after it has been purchased.

The clawback relates to any letting within the five years following acquisition of a property on which first-time buyer's stamp duty relief is claimed. Income earned under the rent-a-room scheme does not trigger the clawback.

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.