May 2020
27
The government has announced the first steps to ease the coronavirus restrictions with a roadmap in place for lockdown measures to be slowly lifted. Understand how to adapt your payroll processes to accommodate for the schemes and subsequent updates.
During the Operational Phase of the scheme, Revenue will calculate employees' previous average net weekly pay and their maximum personal subsidy amount and provide this information to employers. This will be in the form of a Revenue instruction (in CSV format), which employers must download from within their ROS account and import into their payroll software. Revenue are updating the TWSS files daily to include employees that have been rehired after 1 May 2020 and notified to Revenue in an RPN. Where relevant, the Revenue instruction file must be downloaded from ROS again and re-imported into the payroll software.
The Irish Government has introduced a Return to Work Safely Protocol for all businesses to follow. This introduces mandatory measures for organisations to take care of their people and safeguard their health and well-being. All workplaces must adapt their workplace HR policies, procedures and practices to comply fully with the COVID-19 related public health protection measures identified as necessary by the HSE.
Thousands of shops, businesses and construction sites have reopened as part of the first phase of the easing of COVID-19 restrictions. Many businesses are now able to re-engage their staff that had previously been placed on layoff. Can these employees qualify for the Wage Subsidy Scheme? How does this affect payroll?