Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

232. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the position regarding substitute primary teachers who have had difficulty in receiving payment in January and February 2019 (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9664/19]

Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Revenue Commissioners have introduced real time PAYE (PAYE modernisation) which went live on the 1^stJanuary 2019. This was the biggest change to the PAYE system since the 1960s.From 1 January 2019 employers are required to report their employees’ pay and statutory deductions to Revenue for each payroll issue.

The issue related to the taxation of substitute staff and in the case of primary staff was confined to those who were paid in the payment issue date of the 10^th January.A cessation date was included in the payroll file sent to Revenue on the 10^thJanuary for primary staff. The new Revenue system updated the employees’ records immediately and assigned zero credits to them which meant that when they were next paid, for some substitutes, there were no tax credits available to be applied to the salary.

The payroll software was amended in mid-January to prevent an end date transferring to Revenue for future payments. This meant that any substitute staff paid for the first time in 2019 after the 17^thJanuary do not have problems with tax credits. However this software amendment did not correct the issues that arose for the staff who were paid already on the 10th January.

My Department and Revenue accorded the highest priority towards a correction of the tax issues for those substitute staff impacted in that payroll. The new record format to resolve the issue was implemented in the primary staff payroll of the 21st February and generated refunds for 533 primary substitute payees. My Department is also making arrangements to ensure that refunds, where due, are generated for those that have not worked since the payrolls issued in January.

Where a primary substitute teacher has more than one employer, the Revenue Commissioners will issue Revenue Payroll Notifications (RPNs) based on the information available to them. Employees may have more than one source of taxable income and may assign credits to more than one employment. Tax credits and taxable basis are decided by Revenue and notified to the employer to apply to payrolls. Any refunds of tax to staff are based on the information supplied by Revenue.