Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Section 28B of the Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (Covid-19) Act 2020 provided for the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS), which was an economy-wide enterprise support provided to eligible businesses in respect of eligible employees.

Eligibility to EWSS was based on the employer demonstrating that its business was likely to experience a 30 per cent reduction in turnover or orders during a specific reference period and that the disruption to business was caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, the business was required to be tax compliant.

Employees were eligible if they were in receipt of weekly gross wages between €151.50 and €1,462. Revenue’s administration of the scheme was on a self-assessment basis, with employers claiming the subsidy through their payroll submission to Revenue. The legislation also provided that employers were required to carry out a monthly review of eligibility. If employers subsequently determined they were not eligible, or they wished to voluntarily remove themselves from the scheme, they did so through their payroll submission and repaid the subsidies claimed.

The administration of the EWSS was placed under the care and management of Revenue. Throughout the scheme and since its cessation, Revenue has been carrying out a risk-focused programme of compliance interventions to identify businesses that have overclaimed EWSS subsidies, to quantify the amounts overclaimed, and to recoup these overclaimed subsidies. These overclaims arose, for example, in circumstances where employers had claimed subsidies in respect of periods during which they were not eligible for the scheme.

I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that the only circumstance in which employers were required to repay EWSS is if they were not eligible to receive it.

In most instances, agreement is reached with employers, and EWSS subsidies overclaimed are recouped or the liability is warehoused for those employers who qualify for the Debt Warehousing Scheme and who opt to have the debt warehoused. The scheme allowed businesses to temporarily defer repayment of EWSS subsidies overclaimed on an interest-free basis for an extended period of time after which a reduced interest rate of 3 per cent was to be applied. Earlier this year, I announced that this 3 per cent interest rate will be further reduced to 0 per cent for taxpayers who engage meaningfully with Revenue before 1 May 2024, with a view to repaying their warehoused debt.

Where agreement is not reached with an employer, Revenue makes an EWSS notice of assessment and employers have the option to submit an appeal to the Tax Appeals Commission (TAC) within 30 days of the notice of assessment.

An employer can query their EWSS liability with the relevant Revenue Division dealing with the employer’s tax affairs by logging in to ROS and raising a query. They can use the “Contact Us” facility on www.revenue.ie to find the correct contact details for their query.