Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS)

TWSS tax liability paid by your employer

Your employer may wish to pay your 2020 tax liabilities on your behalf. This applies to Income Tax (IT) and Universal Social Charge (USC) liabilities which have arisen due to TWSS payments.

Your employer must engage directly with you and agree the method to pay the tax liabilities.

In January 2021, Revenue made a Preliminary End of Year Statement for 2020 available in myAccount. You can see if there is an underpayment of IT or USC arising due to the TWSS payments you received.

How can your employer pay your tax liabilities?

To pay your tax liabilities as shown in your Preliminary End of Year Statement due to the TWSS payments, your employer can:

• pay your tax liability directly to Revenue
• or
• provide you directly with funds so that you can pay via myAccount.

When the tax liability has been paid, your Preliminary End of Year Statement will be recalculated to reflect this. You must then complete your 2020 Income Tax Return. Once completed, you will receive a Statement of Liability which will show any overpayments or underpayments of tax.

Note

Initially, this facility was limited to payments made by employers on behalf of their employees up to 30 June 2021. It has been extended to run until 30 September 2021.

Documentation and records

You should retain copies of any documentation and records covering your engagement with your employer about these arrangements.

Benefit-in-kind

Revenue will not apply Benefit-in-kind rules to these payments which your employer makes on your behalf.

Further clarifications

The BIK concession also applied where your employer paid your TWSS related tax and USC liabilities where:

• you are a self-assessed taxpayer
• or
• in joint assessed cases, if your spouse is self-assessed.

The BIK concession also applied where your employer paid the TWSS related tax and USC liabilities where:

• you were a proprietary director(s) in the company
• and
• provided the employer paid the TWSS related liabilities of all employees in the company.

Revenue previously advised that certain employees may not have received their full entitlement under the TWSS and are due additional payments. These payments are known as Direct Temporary Wage Subsidy (DTWS). 

Any DTWS refund amount received by you was offset against your TWSS liabilities.  The resulting balance on your Preliminary End of Year Statement is the net amount due to Revenue. This is the amount your employer was due to pay on your behalf to Revenue if such an arrangement existed between you and your employer.

The calculation of DTWS amounts due was finalised in September 2021.

It is not possible for Revenue to provide you with the actual amount of Income Tax and USC due arising from TWSS payments. The amount payable is unique to each employee.

Engagement between you and your employer was essential to agree the amount of the TWSS liabilities that your employer is going to pay. Your Statement of Liability will assist in determining the liabilities relating to the TWSS payments received. 

If the payment made by your employer does not fully settle your debts, if you pay tax through the PAYE system, the balance payable will be collected by reducing your tax credits over four years, starting in January 2022.

Collection of liabilities for self-assessed taxpayers and proprietary directors

You are not eligible to have your TWSS liabilities collected by Revenue by reducing your tax credits over four years if you are:

• a self-assessed taxpayer
• or
• a proprietary director.

This also applies in jointly assessed cases where your spouse is self-assessed, or is a proprietary director.

Self-assessed taxpayers and proprietary directors have access to debt warehousing. If you are ineligible for debt warehousing, please contact the Collector General to discuss payment options.