Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 176:

In page 83, to delete lines 5 and 6, and substitute the following:

“61.(1) Section 28 of the Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (Covid-19) Act 2020 is amended—

(a) in subsection (12), by deleting paragraph (b), and

(b) by inserting the following subsection after subsection (12):

“(12A) A person aggrieved by an assessment or an amended assessment to relevant tax made on that person may appeal the assessment or amended assessment, as the case may be, to the Appeal Commissioners, in accordance with section 949I of the Act, within the period of 30 days after the date of the notice of assessment or the amended assessment, as may be appropriate.”.

(2) Section 28A (inserted by section 2(2) of the Financial Provisions (Covid-19) (No. 2) Act 2020) of the Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (Covid-19) Act 2020 is amended—

(a) in subsection (5)(a), by substituting “Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation” for “Department of Business, Jobs and Innovation”, and

(b) in subsection (6)(b), by substituting “subsection (3)” for “subsection (2)”.

(3) Section 28B (inserted by the Financial Provisions (Covid-19) (No.2) Act 2020) of the is amended—”.

I am introducing several Committee Stage amendments related to changes to the legislation providing for the employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, and the temporary wage subsidy scheme, TWSS.

The first is to alter the rates of subsidy given to a qualifying employer from 20 October 20202 until 31 January 2021. This implements changes previously agreed by the Government on 19 October that the EWSS subsidy may be up to €350 per week.

As a result of this change, the weekly rates of subsidy payable to the employer will be: €203 of a subsidy per employee paid between €151.50 and €202.99; €250 per employee paid between €203 and €299.99; €300 per employee paid between €300 and €399.99; €350 per employee paid between €400 and €1,462. The subsidy payable will remain nil for employees paid less than €151.50 and more than €1,462 per week.

The second change is to bring forward the date of payment of the EWSS subsidy. Similar to the payment schedule that applied under the TWSS, the subsidy payment will be made to the employer as soon as practicable after payroll, generally within two working days.

The purpose of this change is to minimise the delay between employees being paid and their employer receiving the subsidy to thereby reduce the cash flow burden of the wage bill on employers at this time.

This is consistent with the overall objective of the EWSS to support employment.

The third change relates to the turnover test to be met by qualifying employers which requires that they compare current operations with business operations pre-pandemic, in 2019. For EWSS claims from 1 January 2021, the benchmark period for the turnover test will be rolled forward to quarters 1 and 2 of 2021 compared with the same period in 2019. This will update the benchmark period for the new year for all recipient firms and ensure new firms may enter the scheme from January 2021, should the need arise.

Technical amendments will also be made, including the mechanics of clawing back subsidy overpayments from the employer by allowing that a future EWSS claim may be proportionally reduced, rather than require the overpayment be returned, and to update references to now outdated appeals provisions and bring the EWSS appeals process in line with current tax appeals provisions. I recommend these amendments to the committee.