Claiming Your Refund

What’s this charge on my credit card?

A charge from www.shoptaxfree.com means you have recently shopped Tax Free in the Republic of Ireland but failed to have your tax refund validated at your point of exit from the EU. In order to comply with Irish VAT legislation, this VAT has now been applied to your purchases. VAT is Value Added Tax, the equivalent of a Sales Tax in the U.S.A.

What is ShopTaxFree?

Shop Tax Free (and the Horizon Card) are services provided by Fexco to non-EU visitors to the Republic of Ireland. This allows visitors to purchase goods without paying the applicable VAT rate provided they comply with  certain requirements before departing from the EU. 

Why are you charging me?

In recent months, you shopped in the Republic of Ireland and availed of a discounted price  (VAT Off) on the goods you bought by taking advantage of the EU Retail Export Scheme and Value Added Tax Acts (Ireland) of 1976 & 2006. However, you have since failed to satisfy the requirements of that scheme and the Offices of the Irish Revenue Commissioners now require us to reverse that VAT Off position and impose the correct VAT Liability on your purchases.

What requirements of the Retail Export Scheme did I fail to satisfy?

Unfortunately, you failed to have your tax refund form validated at point of exit from the EU. This should have been done at the airport using our Customer Service Desk or Self-service kiosk. Alternatively, the notarised form could have been returned by you at any point within 30 days from the time you purchased the goods.

How are you authorised to raise this charge?

You gave us this authorisation. When you participated in the Scheme at the time of purchase, you signed-up to the Terms and Conditions associated with it and undertook to complete the requirements of the Scheme. 

Why wasn’t I pre-warned about this?

Over the last 30 days, we have made a total of 3 attempts via email to bring these outstanding obligations to your attention and encouraged you to complete the process as required by the Irish Revenue Commissioners. As these attempts have been unsuccessful we are now legally obliged to debit your credit card account in line with the permission provided by you at time of purchase.

What is the actual charge made up of?

The charge that now appears on your credit card represents the original VAT amount that was discounted from your purchase, together with an administration fee imposed by us to cover the additional costs we have incurred in addressing your failure to meet the requirements of the Retail Export Scheme.

Need more information?

We appreciate you may have additional questions and would invite you to make contact with one of our Customer Service Team who will be only too happy to help. They can offer you further guidance on how to avoid any future problems with your tax free shopping in the Republic of Ireland. Please email us at [email protected] or Freephone +353 91 553 258