PAYE Changes

Unfogging the Small Print

The new year period is a time of change each year and whilst so often many of our ‘New Year, New Me’ promises may not stick, there are certain changes in the financial field that are occurring this year that it would be easy to miss. As always, we want to keep you as fully informed as possible.

Until recently, some tax assessment was on what is known as the “earnings basis” and was calculated regardless of whether or not the income was paid to the individual during that assessment year. The PAYE system operates on what is known as the “receipts basis” as in the employer deducting tax from the income at the time of payment to employee. New changes to the Finance Act of 2017 will bring order to confusion and bring all in line with the PAYE system of operations, meaning that all assessments will be moved to the “receipts basis” of assessment.

Changes have been made to the PAYE (Pay As You Earn) system from January 1st 2018 that not everyone may be aware of. As of the beginning of this year, the statutory basis of assessment for most employment income is the actual amount of income received, thus placing the basis of assessment for Schedule E income in line with the operation of PAYE.

Further changes will be in effect from January 1st 2019 including a further modernisation of the PAYE system. From next year, employers will be required to report relevant payroll data to Revenue no later than the date of payment to the employee. There will then be an automatic end of year review carried out on all PAYE customers for the year 2019 and subsequent years.

There are a number of exclusions to the receipts basis who will not see this change, proprietary directors will not be required to make this move, and where there is a PAYE exclusion order in place, no changes will occur. The changes will be required of all other employers and employees.

It is hoped that these moves will have a minimal or non-existent effect on employers, who will still be required to make the deductions when payments are made using the PAYE system. Similarly, this move should also not affect employee wages. As we have discussed in the past, Revenue are eager to clamp down on outstanding tax issues, and are now making the positive move to bring everything in line on a statutory basis and bring parity where there was confusion.

For further information, we advise reading through the recently published Tax and Duty Manual Part 05-01-08 found at the Revenue website at your leisure.

Should you require any further guidance please do not hesitate to get in touch with us here at EcovisDCA where we will be happy to assist you in starting 2018 on the right foot.

– – –

DCA PARTNERSDECLAN DOLAN & EAMONN GARVEY