Revenue appeals for Covid-19 wage subsidy scheme applicants to give correct bank details
The Chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, Niall Cody, has said that the government's Covid-19 wage subsidy scheme is not a declaration of insolvency, instead it should be considered “a mark of honour”
“This list will be a mark of honour of an employer who's tried to do the right thing. It is not anything akin to a tax defaulters list,” he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.
Mr Cody said that if a company was continuing to trade and suffering significant impact, “you would be recklessly trading, if you didn't apply for the scheme.”
The purpose of the scheme is to help employers to pay their wages, but also to leave that company and those companies in a position so that when the recovery comes to still be a valid, viable business, he explained.
“Businesses know how you deal with things, you keep documents, you keep records, we have an ongoing relationship, they send in returns, we will have detailed information from our own systems, I do not anticipate that we will be reviewing many cases at the end of the scheme.”
However, he did recommend that companies keep documentation that supports their application.
“If we get through this in three months and you're talking to me in six months time I don't anticipate that we'll be talking about a significant number of cases that will have difficulty, because we've structured it that to qualify you have to be up to date with your PAYE in respect of employees on your pay roll Feb 2020.
I think that over time we will see that companies who have applied for this, who've tried to keep their employees on payroll, I think that being published on this list will be a mark of honour.
Mr Cody also urged employers to be careful when filling out applications for the scheme. There were 26,000 employers in the scheme already, but hundreds had entered incorrect bank details, he said.
This means Revenue is “sitting on money” that it wants to pay, he said.
On Monday €8million was paid to the scheme and €9million will be paid today, Tuesday.
The purpose of the scheme is to support employers and leave them in a position so that when the recovery comes, they will still be a valid business, he said.
[snippet1]987600[/snippet1]
