On 5 June, the TWSS was extended until the end of August.
Revenue will continue to administer the scheme until 31 August, reimbursing employers for subsidy amounts paid to eligible employees, notified to Revenue via the payroll process.
Employer eligibility
The eligibility criteria for continued participation in the scheme, or to now join the scheme, remains unchanged and continues to relate to the level of negative economic disruption suffered by the employer due to COVID-19 the period April-June 2020.
The scheme remains applicable to employees who were on the employer’s payroll at 29 February 2020, and for whom a payroll submission was made to Revenue in the period from 1 February-31 March.
When the scheme was announced in March, employers joined based on the principles of self-assessment and a best estimate determination in relation to a decline in turnover, customer orders or any other ‘reasonable basis’ measurement.
Revenue has advised employers that as the end of Quarter 2 approaches, they should review their eligibility for the scheme and determine whether they did in fact meet the eligibility criteria.
Where, following a review, an employer determines that the eligibility criteria were met, they can continue to avail of the scheme for the extension period.
If an employer decides that the eligibility criteria were not met but had reasonable grounds for assuming the criteria would be met, the employer should now cease claiming the subsidy for the extended scheme.
Revenue will not seek to claw-back the subsidy paid to such employers where evidence of the best estimate determination supporting the original application is found to be reasonable.
If there was not a reasonable basis the subsidy is repayable to Revenue.
How employers can stop claiming TWSS
The scheme is operated by employers entering details into payroll as a non-taxable amount and setting the PRSI class to J9 for eligible employees.
Employers who no longer wish to claim the TWSS or who, following a review, did not meet the eligibility criteria should no longer make payroll submissions using the J9 PRSI class.
Tapering of subsidy payments
The subsidy payment rates remain unchanged for the duration of the extended scheme and continue to be based on the employee’s normal net weekly pay for January and February 2020.
As the lifting of public health restrictions continue, many sectors are beginning to reopen with employees returning to work.
Where a business starts to recover from the impacts of the pandemic and the employer’s contribution to the employee’s pay increases,
TWSS payments will be subject to tiering and tapering. In the circumstance where an employer pays normal pre-COVID wages, no subsidy is due.
Details of the current TWSS rates and the tapering applicable can be found in the ‘Rates of subsidy from 4 May 2020’ section on Revenue’s website here.
Revised tax credit certificates
TWSS payments are liable to income tax and Universal Social Charge (USC), while the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) is liable to income tax.
The subsidy and PUP are not being taxed in real-time through the PAYE system and instead will be liable for tax and USC, where applicable, at the end of the year when Revenue automatically reviews their tax position.
With the continuation of the TWSS to the end of August 2020, and to minimise the amount of tax owing that may arise at the end of the year, Revenue will place all employees that received payments under either the TWSS or the PUP on a ‘Week 1 basis’.
Notifications to employers to operate the ‘Week 1 basis’ are available in ROS since 21 June.
New facility in myAccount
Employers are obliged to show the amount of the TWSS payments on their employees’ payslips. Revenue has very recently provided a look up facility for employees to view details of subsidy payments made on each pay date via their myAccount record.
By clicking on ‘Manage your tax 2020’on the ‘PAYE Services’ card in myAccount and clicking on the ‘View’ link beside the relevant employment, employees can see whether their employer is participating in the TWSS and being refunded a wage subsidy on their behalf.
Paid
The employee may also be able to see the amount of subsidy paid, where this amount is available from employer payroll submissions made to Revenue.
If employees notice any differences between figures shown in myAccount and those provided to them by their employer they should contact their employer.
If the issue is not rectified to the employee’s satisfaction, the employee can contact Revenue using MyEnquiries under the category 'PAYE (Pay As You Earn) employee/pensioner - Other' and the sub category 'Employee Payroll Reporting - Compliance'.
Employer compliance programme
Over 55,500 employers have already received subsidy payments under TWSS. Revenue will very shortly be contacting these employers to confirm that the scheme is operating correctly and will seek certain documentary evidence to establish that:
- employers participating in the scheme meet the eligibility criteria,
- employees are receiving the correct amount of subsidy, and
- the subsidy amount is being correctly identified in employee payslips.
Revenue expects that these contacts will confirm that the vast majority of employers are fully compliant in their operation of the TWSS.
Further detail and information can be found here on www.revenue.ie.
TWSS Statistical Reports
Revenue has published updated statistics based on the operation of the TWSS to 18 June.
These statistics are published weekly on Revenue’s website here. Key information reflected in the latest statistics include:
- over 61,300 employers registered with Revenue for the TWSS,
- more than 55,500 employers have already received subsidy payments under TWSS,
- over 551,800 employees have received a subsidy since the start of the scheme
- approximately 232,400 employees received a subsidy in the last week,
- an estimated 410,000 employees are currently being supported by the scheme having received a subsidy in their most recent pay period,
- the cumulative value of payments made under the scheme is now €1,589 million,
- this includes €142 million in income tax paid that has been refunded over the same time.