Employees benefit from new facility to view current pay and tax details through Revenue’s online service 'myAccount'

Since 1 January 2019, employers are reporting details of employees’ pay and statutory deductions to Revenue on or before each time an employee is paid. This has enabled Revenue to provide a facility for employees and occupational pension recipients to view, by pay date, what pay, tax, USC and PRSI details have been reported on their behalf by employers or pension providers since the start of the year.

Using the new facility, employees can access their pay and statutory deductions information (tax, USC, PRSI, etc.) in myAccount in just 3 simple steps, which are detailed in an easy to follow video on www.revenue.ie. myAccount is a single access point for Revenue's secure online services and is the quickest, easiest and most convenient way for taxpayers to manage their tax affairs.

Since the launch of the new facility on 15 May 2019, over 30,000 employees have viewed over 52,000 payslips in myAccount. Important benefits of employees being able to view the latest information submitted by their employer are:

• employees can ensure that tax, PRSI, USC and LPT have been deducted from their pay by their employer or pension provider     
• and
• these deductions are being correctly reported to Revenue.

The details displayed in myAccount reflect the information submitted to Revenue by employers on behalf of their employees. If employees have any queries regarding the information submitted to Revenue, they should first contact their employer. If employees continue to have concerns, they can contact Revenue using MyEnquiries.

To date, less than 1% of employees who have viewed their payroll information have contacted Revenue with an enquiry related to the information provided on their behalf by their employer under the new arrangements. For example, one taxpayer reported that “I noticed that one week’s payslip is missing” while another reported that “my employee contributions are being shown incorrectly”. Another employee reported that “my employer has not submitted payslips and I am extremely concerned that the PAYE, USC and PRSI which has been deducted from me has not in fact been paid into Revenue”

From the contacts received and from its own analysis, Revenue has identified instances where employers have not operated the PAYE system correctly and/or have not met their obligations under the new PAYE reporting requirements. Employers where issues have been identified include public bodies, large pension providers and employers in the retail, food production and hospitality sectors.

The types of issues identified include:

• taxing employees on emergency basis in error
• payroll software issues causing information to display under an incorrect PPSN
• not applying the most recent Revenue Payroll Notifications which may result in incorrect tax being deducted from employees or employees not receiving refunds they are due
• incorrectly calculating tax deductions
• a minority of employers who have not submitted any payroll information in line with the new requirements.

Revenue has actively engaged with employers and software providers concerned to highlight the issues arising. Revenue is also assisting employers and software providers to rectify the problems identified for future payroll, including correcting pay and tax information where required. In addition to this engagement, Revenue carries out risk focused employer compliance checks in the normal course of business. As such, employers need to fully appreciate that it is very important that all pay and statutory deductions details are accurately reported as they occur so that the real-time employee record is always fully up to date.

The facility for employees to view their current pay and tax details online in myAccount is one of many benefits enabled by the receipt of real-time payroll information. Further enhanced services now available in myAccount include the facility to check if you are due tax back during periods of unemployment and an enhanced self-service facility to allocate tax credits across different employments.

[Ends 20/06/2019]