Revenue’s Enhanced Reporting Requirements from 1st January 2024: What you need to know

From the 1st of January 2024, the introduction of Section 897C into The Finance Act 2022 will require employers and payroll processors to report details of certain payments made to employees and directors. Where you make one or more of the payments listed below, you must submit the details electronically to Revenue. This submission must be made on or before the payment date.

It should be noted that the new requirements from January 2024 represent phase one of Enhanced Reporting Requirements (ERR). Revenue has not yet indicated what will be included in future phases.

Phase one will apply to the following payments

1. Small benefit

Since January 2022, employers have been able to reward employees with up to two small benefits each year. From 2024, employers will be required to report to Revenue, the value of the benefits paid to each employee.

These non-cash benefits are tax free and must not exceed a combined total of €1,000 in value. After surveying 125 of our payroll customers, we discovered that 76% of them offer their employees a small benefit, such as gift cards during the festive season. It's always nice to see employers going the extra mile for their valued staff!

2. Remote working daily allowance

For the days an employee is working from home, they may be eligible for tax relief on expenses such as their heating, broadband and electricity. To ease the financial burden, employers can pay employees up to €3.20 a day without paying any tax, PRSI or USC on it.

For each employee you are paying a Remote Working daily allowance to, you are required to report the total of number of days they are receiving the allowance for, and the rate being paid.

3. Travel and subsistence

If you have employees who travel for business or who are working away from their employer’s base, you can reimburse them for their travel expenses. You can also reimburse them for subsistence costs when they are temporarily away from their usual place of work, such as the cost of staying in a hotel or the cost of a meal.

The following items and the amounts paid must be reported for each employee and/or director:

• Travel vouched
• Travel unvouched
• Subsistence vouched
• Subsistence unvouched
• Site based employees
• Emergency travel
• Eating on site

How will this information be reported to Revenue?

Revenue (through ROS) will provide a means of manually submitting ERR details. It is our intention to provide an alternative to this manual system, working alongside your payroll software, to save time and provide more accuracy. We also hope to provide guidance in relation to qualifying criteria and backup documentation required in the event of a query by Revenue.

From our customer survey, we found that 14% of those surveyed reimbursed employees’ expenses as part of the normal payroll run, 34% reimbursed employees as soon as they submitted a claim, and 22% reimburses both through payroll and on an ad hoc basis. We aim to design our system in such a way that where travel and subsistence is paid as part of a normal payroll run, the relevant ERR submission can be made as seamlessly as possible. Further information on ERR will be published by Revenue in due course.

To keep up with the latest payroll news, check out our new Bright website. There, you'll be able to register for any of our upcoming payroll webinars and download our payroll guides. For more information on ERR, please visit our hub by clicking the button below.

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Posted byElaine CarrollinPayroll Software