Wage Subsidy Scheme Issues

collsoft

You are very welcome Green Mile, Im glad if it was a help.

Green Mile wrote: »

Thank you, I’ll await and see what revenue comes back with.

I used the wage subsidy calculator on your website www.collsoft.ie during the period. It was a great help so thanks for sharing that.

MrBulb

Collsoft, I really appreciate your reply.


On what basis have they said that you have been overpaid?

This is the explanation I got:
"For the months April – August you got a net pay (ignoring meals) of 2,842 which is the same as the average of January and February. So in essence I paid you the same pay April – August as you got for January and February."


Did they pay you the incorrect rate of pay (from your employment contract)?

My basic salary every month is 2,500 gross and my commission and overtime varies from month to month.
For example my average commission/ overtime for January and February was 1247 gross which is a lot higher compared to TWSS months.

They have multiplied this Jan/Feb average 1247 by 5 months and got the overpayment of 6235.

If things were normal for those 5 months my gross would have been 2500+384.8=2884.8 for every month. (Because I had some commission for those 5 months 1924 total) and I think I would have around 2300-2400 net take home per month.

Did they pay you for work that you did not do?
I was working my normal hours just earning less commission.

Were you absent from Work?
No

Did they make a mistake?
I hope so. First letter that I have received, they said I was overpaid around 4300. I started to ask questions. Then they recalculated and remembered that for the first calculation they only taken into account commission. They have added overtime into calculation and I have received a letter with 6237.60.

I can paste a letter that they have send us when Covid started.

Thank you!

Seve OB

collsoft wrote: »

Hi Seve OB,

We are seeing that this is causing a lot of confusion among employers.

Basically there are two parallel Revenue processes going on at the moment;

1) TWSS Compliance Checking (where you get the letter asking for copies of payslips and other things) which has to be completed within 5 days of being asked.

2) TWSS Reconciliation

Seve OB, you have completed item 1, but you may yet have to complete item 2.

TWSS Reconciliation has 3 distinct stages

Stage 1: Employer reporting - Employer reports to Revenue the amount of TWSS paid to each employee payslip by payslip. This is either done directly through your software, or by creating a CSV file from your software which you then upload to ROS. This lists all payments made to your employees line by line

Stage 2: Revenue Reconciliation Calculation: Revenue takes the data that you supplied in Stage 1, compares it to what they paid the employer and tallies one against the other. This identifies any overpayments that Revenue made to you in the early stages of TWSS where they paid you €410 per week regardless of what you paid your employees.

Stage 3: Employer Accepts Reconciliation - This closes off the process and the employer pays any monies due to Revenue


So you may have already completed Stage 1 of Reconciliation - but its not the same as the compliance check that you already had.

So I need to do this by 31st October then?
I can't seem to find any correspondence from the Revenue asking me to do this.

I haven't done any reconciliations yet, jus haven't had the time.

Do they not know already what employee got what as it it on the weekly submissions?

je551e

collsoft wrote: »

You need to report to Revenue what TWSS you paid to each employee before the 31st October.

If you are using Payroll software you will be able to either report directly through the software, or by creating a CSV file from the software that you can then upload through ROS.

This will tell Revenue exactly what you paid each employee on each payslip and Revenue will be able to work out what you owe them.

make sure and check if there are any updates for your Payroll Software - Most (if not all) software packages have an update for this.

If you don't use Payroll software you must log into ROS and report the amounts manually on each payslip

Thanks , I’ve done all that but I haven’t received a request with the amount we owe back ? I can see the totals alright and what We’ve been paid

je551e

Stage 3: Employer Accepts Reconciliation - This closes off the process and the employer pays any monies due to Revenue


Just saw this part? Where do I accept it?

collsoft

You will have to wait for now.

Revenue will issue your reconciliation CSV file some time in November.

Not sure yet when you can close the whole thing off just yet.

je551e wrote: »

Stage 3: Employer Accepts Reconciliation - This closes off the process and the employer pays any monies due to Revenue


Just saw this part? Where do I accept it?

collsoft

Hi Seve OB,

It really depends on two factors

1) What Payroll Software you are using

2) When you started using TWSS.


Some software has been reporting the TWSS payments to Revenue as you were making your submissions, however, the facility to report was only added by Revenue on 20th April, so even if your software was reporting after that date, you may still have some payslips that were not reported.

For example, We (CollSoft) released an update to report TWSS to Revenue as part of your normal submissions on 22nd April.

So, depending on when the user would have updated our software, if they were using TWSS before that date, you will have some payslips which were not reported.

Revenue were able to tell me that for all the TWSS payslips processed using our software, 89% had already been reported at the beginning of October.

We released an update to go back to the beginning and report the remaining 11%, and I think we are almost there.


But, if you were using Thesaurus or Brightpay for example, then none of your payslips were reporting TWSS with your normal revenue submissions. With these systems you need to create a TWSS paid report CSV file from the software and then upload it to Revenue through ROS.

For Sage I think it depends on which particular package you use - some report through the software, some use the CSV file.

It varies from software package to software package, and to be honest there was no perfect solution, and no matter what system you were using you really need to look into this for yourself and figure out where you are with reporting.

Revenue have not helped with this. They were supposed to provide each employer with a file showing all the payments made to the employer, and all the amounts that have been reported by the employer.

This file would have told you what your reporting status was, but alas they didnt get time to develop it yet, so the employer and software comapny need to try and figure out what needs to be reported.

Anyway, sorry for the long answer, but each case is individual and there are a lot of permutations

Jason

Seve OB wrote: »

So I need to do this by 31st October then?
I can't seem to find any correspondence from the Revenue asking me to do this.

I haven't done any reconciliations yet, jus haven't had the time.

Do they not know already what employee got what as it it on the weekly submissions?

Seve OB

Sage Micropay Professional or whatever the new name for it is.
Been on the TWSS from the off and always run updates straight away.
Thanks for the update, I’ll have to make time next week to reconcile.
Might mean I won’t have the time to run the payroll haha.

collsoft

Im sorry MrBulb that I cant help more,

You need to go and get more detailed professional advice.

I dont understand how you and your employer are mixing up Gross and Net, Pay, overtime and commission.

Gross Pay is determined by your employment contract.

Overtime is based on the extra hours that you worked over and above your normal contracted hours, or as set out in your employment contract.

Commission is usually some percentage of sales or targets etc.

So if your employer is telling you that he paid you too much, then you need to ask yourself these questions;

1) Did I work that overtime
2) Did I earn that commission based on my performance.

As for your basic salary, well that is as per your contract. If you are willing to take a reduction in your basic salary and have it payed via TWSS well then fair enough.

But do not fall into the trap of just looking at your net pay. Your net pay is a matter between you and Revenue. Your relationship with your employer is based on Gross Pay (even if you actually have agreed a net take home pay)

You need advice, and €6000 is a lot of money for an employer to be trying to reclaim from any employee - it is a Gross Incompetence if you employer is claiming he made this scale of mistake.

MrBulb wrote: »

Collsoft, I really appreciate your reply.


On what basis have they said that you have been overpaid?

This is the explanation I got:
"For the months April – August you got a net pay (ignoring meals) of 2,842 which is the same as the average of January and February. So in essence I paid you the same pay April – August as you got for January and February."


Did they pay you the incorrect rate of pay (from your employment contract)?

My basic salary every month is 2,500 gross and my commission and overtime varies from month to month.
For example my average commission/ overtime for January and February was 1247 gross which is a lot higher compared to TWSS months.

They have multiplied this Jan/Feb average 1247 by 5 months and got the overpayment of 6235.

If things were normal for those 5 months my gross would have been 2500+384.8=2884.8 for every month. (Because I had some commission for those 5 months 1924 total) and I think I would have around 2300-2400 net take home per month.

Did they pay you for work that you did not do?
I was working my normal hours just earning less commission.

Were you absent from Work?
No

Did they make a mistake?
I hope so. First letter that I have received, they said I was overpaid around 4300. I started to ask questions. Then they recalculated and remembered that for the first calculation they only taken into account commission. They have added overtime into calculation and I have received a letter with 6237.60.

I can paste a letter that they have send us when Covid started.

Thank you!

collsoft

I think Sage Micropay Professional may be like our software - I think they were reporting the TWSS payments form the end of April or beginning of May.

So if you were in the scheme at the start (from March 12th) you may have 5 or 6 weeks that were not reported.

I know that we had to write a function to go back and resubmit those periods - not sure how Sage handled it

Seve OB wrote: »

Sage Micropay Professional or whatever the new name for it is.
Been on the TWSS from the off and always run updates straight away.
Thanks for the update, I’ll have to make time next week to reconcile.
Might mean I won’t have the time to run the payroll haha.

qwabercd

collsoft wrote: »

Im sorry MrBulb that I cant help more,

You need to go and get more detailed professional advice.

I dont understand how you and your employer are mixing up Gross and Net, Pay, overtime and commission.

Gross Pay is determined by your employment contract.

Overtime is based on the extra hours that you worked over and above your normal contracted hours, or as set out in your employment contract.

Commission is usually some percentage of sales or targets etc.

So if your employer is telling you that he paid you too much, then you need to ask yourself these questions;

1) Did I work that overtime
2) Did I earn that commission based on my performance.

As for your basic salary, well that is as per your contract. If you are willing to take a reduction in your basic salary and have it payed via TWSS well then fair enough.

But do not fall into the trap of just looking at your net pay. Your net pay is a matter between you and Revenue. Your relationship with your employer is based on Gross Pay (even if you actually have agreed a net take home pay)

You need advice, and €6000 is a lot of money for an employer to be trying to reclaim from any employee - it is a Gross Incompetence if you employer is claiming he made this scale of mistake.

This is my understanding too and this is where employers are going wrong, sometimes purposely.

Lots of employees are left out of pocket because they were paid a lower gross pay, that got them back to the same net pay monthly. But because of the year end tax bill, they will end up worse off, sometimes significantly so. As I see it, unless the employee agreed to a reduced gross pay, this is wrong. Although not sure how that argument would go down with employers.

Green Mile

The software I used did transmit the TWSS to revenue but only from April.
In March, we processed a non taxable payment just like an expense payment (and reduced the taxable pay by the same amount, I.e gross was the same but part was non-taxable).
I just recently amended the March submission within Ros for the staff that got the TWSS for March as there is a drop down in Ros called GovCovid19 WageSub within each individual employees submission.
I just entered that “expense amount” into that field.

All other months had entries in the drop down so I can see the software did it’s job but March was done manually myself. So I think I’m correct in saying I don’t need to do the TWSS reconciliation.

I’m wondering now should I go back in and amend the PRSi class for March to J9, I’m thinking I should? Maybe not?

je551e

collsoft wrote: »

You will have to wait for now.

Revenue will issue your reconciliation CSV file some time in November.

Not sure yet when you can close the whole thing off just yet.

Many thanks your help has been very much appreciated over the last number of months

collsoft

March was a funny month.

First, there was an emergency scheme that paid €203 per week between 12th March and 26th March. This was not TWSS, I think it was called the "Employer Refund Scheme", but it also used PRSI class J9

After the 26th March there was TWSS which used J9 and paid €410 per week.

So the amount for a monthly wage depended on your Payment date and when exactly you submitted it to Revenue.

I am curious about one thing though. You mentioned that you did not use PRSI class J9 in March.

If you used another class then I dont think you would have received a payment from Revenue.

Also, March was counted as a partial month, so for monthly wages under TWSS you only received €812

So, there is a few things that you need to check here - but the main thing is did you actually get a subsidy from Revenue, because without having a J9 I cant see how you did.

Green Mile wrote: »

The software I used did transmit the TWSS to revenue but only from April.
In March, we processed a non taxable payment just like an expense payment (and reduced the taxable pay by the same amount, I.e gross was the same but part was non-taxable).
I just recently amended the March submission within Ros for the staff that got the TWSS for March as there is a drop down in Ros called GovCovid19 WageSub within each individual employees submission.
I just entered that “expense amount” into that field.

All other months had entries in the drop down so I can see the software did it’s job but March was done manually myself. So I think I’m correct in saying I don’t need to do the TWSS reconciliation.

I’m wondering now should I go back in and amend the PRSi class for March to J9, I’m thinking I should? Maybe not?

collsoft

Many years beofre I set up CollSoft I used to run the payroll for my Uncle's company with about 40 employees.

I know that not running the payroll on time will lead to a mutiny, and likely a loss of life!!!!

Best of luck with that

Seve OB wrote: »

Sage Micropay Professional or whatever the new name for it is.
Been on the TWSS from the off and always run updates straight away.
Thanks for the update, I’ll have to make time next week to reconcile.
Might mean I won’t have the time to run the payroll haha.

Green Mile

collsoft wrote: »

If you used another class then I dont think you would have received a payment from Revenue.

Also, March was counted as a partial month, so for monthly wages under TWSS you only received €812

We paid €812 on the last day of the month for the monthly payroll.
We didn’t use PRSI class J9.
I need to check if we even received the subsidy payment with the accountant now that you say it.
I will assume though, if I change the PRSI class to J9 now for March, the subsidy payment (plus the PRSI difference) will issue.

Seve OB

collsoft wrote: »

Many years beofre I set up CollSoft I used to run the payroll for my Uncle's company with about 40 employees.

I know that not running the payroll on time will lead to a mutiny, and likely a loss of life!!!!

Best of luck with that

tell me about it. i have seen plenty of mini revolts when staff who "know it all" get on their high horse. but yea of course it was my fault that time that revenue switched everyone to a week 1 basis and resulted in them not getting their correct credits. i had no idea what i was doing and i should have been sacked! :rolleyes:

jayo3328

Its great the the roles of Judge, Jury and Executioner haven't combined.

Much more efficient dont you think

Seve OB wrote: »

tell me about it. i have seen plenty of mini revolts when staff who "know it all" get on their high horse. but yea of course it was my fault that time that revenue switched everyone to a week 1 basis and resulted in them not getting their correct credits. i had no idea what i was doing and i should have been sacked! :rolleyes:

jayo3328

I have bad news I'm afraid - I don't think that Revenue will pay that €812 now, even if you put J9.

You can try, but I think you will have to follow Revenue through MyEnquiries

Fingers crossed for you

Green Mile wrote: »

We paid €812 on the last day of the month for the monthly payroll.
We didn’t use PRSI class J9.
I need to check if we even received the subsidy payment with the accountant now that you say it.
I will assume though, if I change the PRSI class to J9 now for March, the subsidy payment (plus the PRSI difference) will issue.

The_Chap

collsoft wrote: »

I think Sage Micropay Professional may be like our software - I think they were reporting the TWSS payments form the end of April or beginning of May.

So if you were in the scheme at the start (from March 12th) you may have 5 or 6 weeks that were not reported.

I know that we had to write a function to go back and resubmit those periods - not sure how Sage handled it

SeveOB - The version of Sage Payroll you are using does indeed include a “write back” facility to report the full J9 payments in the csv file submission to include those that were pre TWSS

Darkbomber

So basically we just have to resubmit each week/months payroll and that is all for stage 1 Is this right.

If you can't resubmit the submissions you need to do the csv file. So one or the other.

collsoft wrote: »

You need to report to Revenue what TWSS you paid to each employee before the 31st October.

If you are using Payroll software you will be able to either report directly through the software, or by creating a CSV file from the software that you can then upload through ROS.

This will tell Revenue exactly what you paid each employee on each payslip and Revenue will be able to work out what you owe them.

make sure and check if there are any updates for your Payroll Software - Most (if not all) software packages have an update for this.

If you don't use Payroll software you must log into ROS and report the amounts manually on each payslip

PickYourName

collsoft wrote: »

Revenue have not helped with this. They were supposed to provide each employer with a file showing all the payments made to the employer, and all the amounts that have been reported by the employer.

This file would have told you what your reporting status was, but alas they didnt get time to develop it yet, so the employer and software comapny need to try and figure out what needs to be reported.

Is there any news about this file? I asked this through MyEnquiries and after a few days got a response that gave a load of general information, but didn't answer the question.

We use Sage Business Cloud Payroll, which provides zero support for any of this: the only way to report is by re-submitting every single payrun from mid-March to end-August. Not only that, but every single employee payment has to be changed before doing this. It's a lot of manual changes and although it's done now, I'm concerned that there's an error somewhere.

Without this file or a similar report from Revenue it is impractical to check the submissions, as checking every employee payment would take forever.

Sage have essentially washed their hands of providing any help or support.

Seve OB

You should absolutely not be resubmitting payroll folks.

PickYourName

Seve OB wrote: »

You should absolutely not be resubmitting payroll folks.

Can you explain that?

I've been advised by Sage that it's what we have to do.

See: https://help.accounting.sage.com/en-ie/payroll/absence-and-holidays/covid-19-reconciling-termporary-wage-subsidy-scheme-payments.html?tocpath=Advice%20for%20Coronavirus%20(COVID%2019)%7C_____2

mogilvie

PickYourName wrote: »

Is there any news about this file? I asked this through MyEnquiries and after a few days got a response that gave a load of general information, but didn't answer the question.

We use Sage Business Cloud Payroll, which provides zero support for any of this: the only way to report is by re-submitting every single payrun from mid-March to end-August. Not only that, but every single employee payment has to be changed before doing this. It's a lot of manual changes and although it's done now, I'm concerned that there's an error somewhere.

Without this file or a similar report from Revenue it is impractical to check the submissions, as checking every employee payment would take forever.

Sage have essentially washed their hands of providing any help or support.

Revenue are still having difficulties with the process of creating this file. I don't think it will happen before the 31st of October. Many of the payroll software providers have gone and used other methods of preparing re submissions.

Everyone is in the same boat though. There is no means to confirm what Revenue have on file, without going line by line through the payslip submissions in ROS.

We just have to wait and see what comes out in Stage 2.

mogilvie

Seve OB wrote: »

You should absolutely not be resubmitting payroll folks.

The advice from Revenue during the operational and transitional phases of TWSS was to not make any re-submissions. Because it could have potentially triggered another refund process via the banking system.

However, as TWSS has finished, the refund process no longer gets triggered.

You can legitimately make re submissions on J9 payslips now. It is one of the methods provided for during the reconciliations stage. Those early payslips in March/April were never sent with the OtherPayments field. So Revenue want all TWSS employers to resubmit those payslips, or upload the CSV.

mogilvie

Darkbomber wrote: »

So basically we just have to resubmit each week/months payroll and that is all for stage 1 Is this right.

If you can't resubmit the submissions you need to do the csv file. So one or the other.

Stage 1 is about making sure that the amount of every subsidy on every payslip that you paid is reported to Revenue. So yes, re-submissions, or CSV.

However, you may not have to do all your payslips.

In the early phases of the scheme the employer/software provider had to calculate the subsidy amount. And there was no means of reporting that amount to Revenue. They just paid out a fixed amount, and you should have ring-fenced the difference for repayment.

Later, at the end of April, they created the OtherPayments field in the submissions, where the amount of subsidy paid to the employee could be reported.

So, you don't need to resubmit all payslips. Only those TWSS payslips that didn't contain the Other Payments field. Depending on when your software provider implemented it, that will be around the end of April and early May.

Although, depending on how messy things got, you might want to resubmit everything. It's up to you.

The things that we all need to watch out for might be:

• Duplicate submissions,
• Payslips not submitted,
• J9 submissions but no other payments field
• J9 submissions with 0 subsidy paid
• People paid a subsidy, but class J9 not reported.

If you can look through your own pay runs for some of those scenarios, then you might resubmit/delete those as well.

The CSV option is probably the belt and braces approach. Select every TWSS payslip and give Revenue the lot in one file. Although even that doesn't cover all scenarios or potential errors.

It's a bit hit and miss until Revenue provide some way of checking, in bulk, against what they have on file.

PickYourName

mogilvie wrote: »

Everyone is in the same boat though. There is no means to confirm what Revenue have on file, without going line by line through the payslip submissions in ROS.

We just have to wait and see what comes out in Stage 2.

OK, great, thanks.

I have on record with ROS My Enquiries that I've done the best I can for now in case anyone queries it.

My guess is there must be hundreds if not thousands of employers who are struggling with the same issues.

Lollipop95

Hoping someone can shed some light on my issue as I’m terrible with taxes. I’ve been on the COVID payment since May after losing my job. I started a new one recently and got paid for the rest time a couple of days ago. I was examining the statement and noticed beside ‘Income Tax Calculation Basis’, it says Week 1. According to the revenue site, they should be contacted if it says Week 1. Does anyone know what this might mean and if it’s related to the COVID payment? I submitted a form on their website tonight to let them know that I was stopping my payment as I was returning to work.

collsoft

Hi Lollipop95,

Everybody who has been on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) has been on a Week 1 taxation basis.

Indeed, even the employees who were not on PUP, but were on the wage subsidy scheme have also been put on a week 1 taxation basis.

There is a very good reason why this has happened, and it is because of the way that tax calculations work.

If you were not put on a Week 1 basis then when you started your new job your tax calculations would give you a big tax refund through your wages.

But this would be a false refund because the PUP is subject to tax (but not USC or PRSI), so at the end of the year you would have to pay some of it back.

With the Week 1 taxation basis yu wont get a refund now, and this will make things easier at year end.

You will have to pay some tax (PAYE) on your PUP, but you wont have to pay USC or PRSI on it.

I know this will be difficult, but Revenue are going to allow you to spread this over 4 years by reducing your tax credits beginning in 2022.

You have done the correct thing by telling Social Welfare that you have started a new job, but you don't need to contact Revenue about the Week 1

Lollipop95 wrote: »

Hoping someone can shed some light on my issue as I’m terrible with taxes. I’ve been on the COVID payment since May after losing my job. I started a new one recently and got paid for the rest time a couple of days ago. I was examining the statement and noticed beside ‘Income Tax Calculation Basis’, it says Week 1. According to the revenue site, they should be contacted if it says Week 1. Does anyone know what this might mean and if it’s related to the COVID payment? I submitted a form on their website tonight to let them know that I was stopping my payment as I was returning to work.