Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS)
Effective from 20th October 2020 the EWSS rates were revised as follows:
| Gross weekly pay | Revised Rates |
| Less than €151.50 | Nil |
| €151.50 – €202.99 | €203 |
| €203 – €299.99 | €250 |
| €300 – €399.99 | €300 |
| €400 – €1,462 | €350 |
| Over €1,462 | Nil |
The qualifying criteria remains unchanged.
Eligible employees
The scheme is available for employers who keep staff on their payroll during the pandemic. Employees can be:
- Temporarily not working, or
- On reduced hours or reduced pay, or both reduced hours and reduced pay.
This may be of benefit to employers wanting to retain employees on their payroll and for employees that are unable to claim Covid PUP, for example: those over 66 and those living in Northern Ireland.
There have been some changes which relate to the EWSS eligibility criteria for proprietary directors. Such directors can claim EWSS provided:
- The proprietary director is on the payroll.
- Was paid wages which were reported to Revenue on the payroll between 1 July 2019 and 30 June 2020.
- Where a person is a proprietary director of 2 or more eligible companies, a claim for the EWSS can only be submitted for a single company.
Please see link below for further guidance:
https://www.revenue.ie/en/employing-people/documents/ewss/ewss-guidelines.pdf
