Thomas Byrne
Question:38. Deputy Thomas Byrne asked the Minister for Finance the status of an application by a person (details supplied) made to the Revenue Commissioners for the temporary wage subsidy scheme. [11672/20]
View answerTuesday, 23 June 2020
Questions (38)
Written answers
The Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS) is an emergency measure to deal with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy. It builds on data returned to Revenue through the PAYE system and as such is a fully automated solution. The automated solution, which was developed in a very short timeframe in response to the pandemic, is designed around the dates specified in the legislation and cannot function where those timelines are not strictly adhered to. The timelines require that employees were on the payroll at 29 February 2020 and that employers had fulfilled their PAYE reporting obligations for February 2020 before 15 March 2020.
The 15 March 2020 deadline in respect of the February payroll submission was recently extended to ‘before’ 1 April 2020 by Revenue under its care and management provisions. However, this concession can only apply where all previous payroll submissions were received by 15 March 2020. The concession is also only applicable on a prospective basis and cannot be applied to previous pay periods. The employer must also record a J9 PRSI class for each eligible employee in the relevant payroll submission to access the TWSS. Where the J9 PRSI class is not recorded, then the system cannot ‘identify’ an employee as being eligible for the subsidy.
I am advised by Revenue that the difficulties experienced by the business in question in accessing the TWSS occurred because it recorded PRSI classes other than J9 for its employees, which resulted in them being excluded from the scheme. Following direct engagement with Revenue, the matter was rectified and the business has access to the scheme since 12 June.