Revenue announced that certain employers who hadn’t fulfilled their PAYE reporting obligations for February 2020 by 15 March 2020, can now access the scheme. Revenue say they considered representations from and on behalf of employers who have not met the reporting conditions and therefore could not avail of scheme.

The Institute received many queries from members on the definition of specified employee per the legislation and the Revenue’s guidance which states that the scheme is confined ‘to employees who were on the employer’s payroll at 29 February and for whom a payroll submission was made in the period from 1 February to 15 March 2020’. We asked Revenue to consider looking at cases that do not strictly meet the definition of specified employee on a case by case basis for merit.

The scheme is extended to employers provided that:

• The employees in question were included on the employer’s payroll on 29 February 2020
• The February 2020 payroll submission was submitted to Revenue before 1 April 2020
• Payroll submissions for all previous months were submitted to Revenue before 15 March 2020

The notice from Revenue states that “any employers that were previously unable to access the TWSS and who meet the revised criteria are now included in the Scheme. Where they wish to avail of TWSS payments they should ensure eligible employees are set to J9 PRSI class on future payroll submissions.”

The Revenue FAQs are updated to reflect this extension.