Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 25 November 2021

Public Accounts Committee

Business of Committee

9:30 am

Photo of Brian StanleyBrian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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I suggest we agree to look for that breakdown as well, along with the clarificatory question Deputy Carthy has for Revenue on whether relevant documents simply do not exist or are not available to it.

I note there are a number of statements attached to the letter. We will go through them. Appendix 1 states:

By way of background, it is important to note that PAYE is not a tax, but a collection mechanism for Income Tax... The operation of PAYE on bona fide self-employed couriers involved the application of a withholding tax on an administrative basis, which facilitated collection of tax on account from a cohort of self-employed individuals and made it easier for these individuals to meet their payment compliance obligations.

The code of practice for determining self-employed status, published in July 2021, states that an individual would normally be an employee if he or she has his or her tax deducted from his or her wages through the PAYE system. There seems to be a number of contradictions running through that. We will first seek to clarify, from the documentation provided by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the number of people who are classified as self-employed and the breakdown of the sectors. Is that agreed? Agreed. Representatives from Revenue will be before the committee again and I am sure we will revisit this matter.

The next correspondence is No. 888B from Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú, Secretary General of the Department of Education, dated 12 November 2021. It is an update in relation to a recommendation in the committee's report on our examination of the Department's 2018 and 2019 appropriation accounts. The matter was flagged for discussion by Deputy Catherine Murphy.