Employer claiming back COVID-19 payment- how to do this.

Further details have been announced on the temporary refund scheme, which encourages employers to make a €203 payment to employees each week rather than have them apply for the pandemic unemployment payment directly from DEASP.

The most important question for employers will be – How long will it take to get the money refunded? Per the release from Revenue they will credit the employer bank account for payroll submissions received before 2:00 PM each day. Depending on the individual bank, the refund should be with the employer on the next banking day.

Making an application for the Refund Scheme

Employers, or their agents, apply to Revenue to operate the scheme by carrying out the following steps:

• Log on to ROS myEnquiries and select the category ‘Employer COVID-19 Refund Scheme’.
• Read the declaration and press the ‘Submit’ button.
• Log on to ROS and in ‘Manage bank accounts’, ‘Manage EFT’, ensure that the bank account details provided are correct.

Key features of the scheme

The employer runs the payroll as normal, entering the following details for each relevant employee:

• PRSI Class set to J9
• A pay amount of €0.01 (there must be some pay entered for the payroll to run)
• A non-taxable amount of €203. No other payment amounts are made by the employer to the employee and all temporarily laid off employees are granted the €203
• The payroll submission must include pay frequency and period number.

No other payments are made by the employer to the employee for the applicable week(s) and all temporarily laid off employees receive the €203 per week. Income tax, USC and PRSI are not deducted from the €203 payment.

Any Income Tax and USC refunds that arise as a result of the application of tax credits and rate bands can be repaid by the employer and this amount will also be refunded to the employer on the same time frame. Full details of the release can be found at the link below –

www.revenue.ie/en/news/articles/employer-covid-19-refund-scheme.aspx

Date published 19 Mar 2020

This article is intended to inform rather than advise and is based on legislation and practice at the time. Taxpayer’s circumstances do vary and if you feel that the information provided is beneficial it is important that you contact us before implementation. If you take, or do not take action as a result of reading this article, before receiving our written endorsement, we will accept no responsibility for any financial loss incurred.