Pandemic Unemployment Payment to be extended for months, but reduced for part-timers

@Sharp Elsi Mate: This money was awarded to revenue.ie, no other EU country has made demands on it and the argument that it will have to be shared with other EU countries is beyond the remit of EU state aid rules. Maybe if one other country made a demand on this money it could make the Government of Ireland case untenable and some citizens of the EU could benefit from it.

@Big Smokey: the EU also wants Ireland to raise its corporation taxes to match the rest of Europe. There’s a reason why corporations have set up in Ireland and if they were to leave you’d know all about it.

@Stephen: so where would they leave to go to? Wouldn’t the whole moving process also cost a lot of money

@Stephen: I’m for our tax policy and how it’s being used.
I’m just saying that all that the EU ruled that the apple money is ours.

@Minamino: no it would be relatively easy to move.

@Big Smokey: no the EU said we should collect it, difference is huge. Other EU countries then to come to us for their share if they can prove its owed to them..

@Sean Byrne: I am sorry but that is categorically incorrect and I do not blame anyone for not understanding what is a very complicated case, I did my thesis on it. At present Apple pays any mandatory EU corporation tax in Ireland, the argument of the Competition Commission is that taxes should arise where economic activity takes place.

The result of that is that an Irish company (Apple) would need to fairly account for their profits where they occur. That is not a feature of our or indeed any member states tax regime and it is being read into our tax law.

In short, this is a very simplified explanation, if you want to know more about it please read up on the ‘at arms length’ accounting principle and the ‘double Irish with a Dutch filling sandwich’ accounting trick.

@Sharp Elsi Mate: Doesn’t matter if only 20 cent of it is ours. If they owe tax, they owe tax. Same as anyone else.

@Stephen: There is no EU corporate tax rate, so you’re lying on that assertion.

@Stephen: If they only enforced that rate we would be far better off instead the effective rate for most multinationals is less than 1% that is why the e.u are going nuts. The amount of loopholes for corporate tax avoidance in Ireland is mindboggling

@Sean Byrne: There is an old tale about a farmer and a goose who laid golden eggs.
You should read it.

@Big Smokey: yes I agree. The argument is that they should have paid corporation tax in Ireland as that was where the operations were based. There is no remit for other countries to get their hands on this. We are not talking about VAT.
If the EU wins (which they won’t) Ireland will get all of the money but it will undermine Revenue and the transparency of our tax laws making us less attractive for investment due to the uncertainty it would create.

@Karl Mc Cauley: how will they prove it’s owed to them? It’s corporation tax not VAT. If the money came to Ireland that because of their transfer pricing agreements and therefore is taxable in Ireland if the EU wins.
The EU will lose so the whole conversation is a waste of time.

@Minamino: they could pack up operations in a month and leave us with a load of empty buildings and a load of people out of the job. Our economy is unbelievably dependent on multinational tech companies

@Ian Breathnach: read my post. To match other EU countries. We have one of the lowest if not the lowest corporation taxes in the EU.That’s all I’m saying, whether it’s right or wrong I don’t know. I’m not an expert maybe you are?
I think most people got what I was trying to say.

@Joe: the ruling from the Eu was that we helped apple avoid paying taxes in other Eu countries by funneling through us so if that ruling becomes binding we will have to dole put to the various countries where it wasn’t paid

@Colm Malone: not as much as people think for direct employment and not any more than other countries. The win would be for Ireland to lose this case, as we would get the full amount (we are entitled to this 100% if it was anti competitive, no other country has “dibs”), and show Apple and other MNCs that we will defend their right for international tax law to be applied to them. The majority of people commenting don’t get this case at all (it was never about tax avoidance or sweetheart deals, but interpretation of transfer pricing).

@Seán O’Sullivan: was it really? Where did you read that? The Commission’s ruling was about giving Apple an unfair advantage against other companies in Ireland and amounted to illegal state aid.

@Sharp Elsi Mate: Wonder if Sean has made any attempt to understand why.

@Sean Byrne: And we’d never have another multinational again grace our shores bringing with them jobs, which mean our taxes don’t go up further and more of us can enjoy our magnolia coloured semi-detached homes and hybrid cars.

@Michael McGrath: If we ever started investigating business license addresses, we’d cease being useful to many, many businesses registered here. I know of three people who have family members in Europe who’s businesses are registered here but aren’t trading here. We are our own worst enemy.

@Stephen: We have an unfair advantage among other European countries in the stakes to win multi-national corps? You don’t say.

@Sean Byrne: we raised 1.2billion euros more in corporate tax in May of this versus the same period last year. Despite our entire economy being effectively shut down. If this doesn’t highlight to you how incredibly dependent on corporate tax we are as country, it should. Such a narrow reliance would ordinarily be a bad thing, obviously, but right now we’re very fortunate to have so many MNC’s keeping us afloat.

@Minamino: No,

@Michael McGrath: and how many jobs would be lost if they weren’t here, imagine how many lads would be on the dole and no more taxes coming form all them employees, all them employees making money and spending it on goods that also have taxes on them , for our wee country it would have serious bad effect on our over all economic standing

@Sean Byrne: rubbish comment as usual

@Karllye kripton: I never said that did i but the nominal rate is still far cheaper than the rest of Europe and we dont exercise it at all. So do you agree that the middle earner continually gets screwed while corporate wealth continues to grow exponentially. That excuse that companies up sticks and leave is a load of shite they have to pay tax in every country

@Sean Byrne: we dont have it so we dont count it. When we do get it most of it will be claimed by our “partners in Europe”.

@Steve: how is it free money.?? … the people that are getting the two payments are people who are /were working and paying into the system….. Clown of a comment..

@Colonel Grant: Who found the massive multi billion hole in Noonans last budget? You are absolutely braind dead and clearly facts are not your strong suit.

@Colonel Grant: very like Simon Harris I’d say.

@Colonel Grant: He enrolled in a civil engineering degree course at Dublin Institute of Technology in 1996. He completed two years of the course, earning a national certificate that entitled him to work as a civil engineering technician. He then left third-level education to pursue a job in that field.[3] Doherty later resumed his studies by enrolling in another civil engineering course at Letterkenny Institute of Technology

@Honeybee: so you agree. He’s not exactly highly educated then.

@Colonel Grant: lols

@Colonel Grant: If your talking about prime educational qualifications maybe you should look into the educational qualifications of the man heading the dept that has the whole country shut down at the moment if your going to be slinging stones.

@Colonel Grant: Whats wrong with an average leaving cert? Ridiculous comment.

@Colonel Grant: Simon 18 other coronaviruses Harris what did he study in college

@Honeybee: Ah yes the great days of the college with The Doc in Aula Maxima Letterkenny.

@Seamus Bridgeman: Journalism for a while before he dropped out to “further his political career” i.e make tea for Frances Fitzgerald

@Colonel Grant: well at least he’s not Minister for Health who also has a standard leaving cert qualification.and secondly it wasn’t Paschal the wonderful minister for finance who highlighted the insurance rip offs but Pearse Doherty who contrary to your prejudice is known as an extremely astute financier.And thirdly I heard that interview and didn’t hear Pearse in any difficulty but to answer with the fact that he would get the money the very same place the govt were going to get it.

@Honeybee: what’s a civil engineering technician.?

@paul gurney: in other words put us more in debt ? Borrow give borrow give , rinse repeat. There has to be a bit of pay back too. That’s the catch. It will be interesting when we are being taxed more to pay all this back how loud the keep the payments forever people will be about austerity. There will be short memories.

@Steve: thats why is making its way to Oz And trumpland

@Colonel Grant: from a bank in belfast sterilization for all

@artur filip: yes but most of them have been working minimum 40hour weeks paying taxes so why shouldn’t they get it?

@Carla R: if they are working minimum of 40 hrs a week then they are working illegally as they can only work maximum 20 hrs with student visa

@artur filip: if they were working and lost their job because of covid they would be entitled but otherwise no

@Carla R: 40 hrs per week is not legal. Since 1st January 2016 students holding a valid immigration stamp 2 are permitted to work 40 hours per week during the months of May, June, July and August and from 15 December to 15 January inclusive. At all other times they will be limited to working 20 hours per week.

@Paul Kennedy: Indeed Stamp 2 visa can work during the pandemic for up to 40h until the schools are reopening but they weren’t allowed before.

@Carla R: as pointed out they are only allowed work 20 hours a week. Of course many sign up for language schools just to work. That is why so many were closed down as it was a scam to work in Ireland.

@artur filip: they were getting the payment before they could work 40hours a week

@Craic_a_tower: I remember hearing of a loophole that if they were working in the same area as their study they could work 40hr weeks, an old colleague used it before (long time ago and as such, I stand to be corrected)

@Craic_a_tower: I’m afraid that stopped a few years ago. Stamp 2 is not so easy to get ow just cause you signed up an english school. You have to show documents, attendance, money and insurance and government don’t let people work more than 20 hours what’s leaving them with around €800/month after taxes they MUST pay. This was a pandemic, something extraordinary and all people who were working are getting it so I can’t understand why would be an issue if they are also getting it. As for sure 90% of students have been paying non refundable taxes to the gov as they should be since Ireland opened language schools programme.

@artur filip: why?

@Sam Glynn: If they are legally working, that is.

@Link: if that was the case in the past it’s definitely not the case now, the rules on stamp 2 visas are very simple and black and white, they can work 20 hours per week with the exception of 15th December – 15th January and then 1st June to 30th September where they can work 40 hours regardless of the field of work they are in

@Loreto Suarez: they should not be getting it because they were not earning that much before. Going from 200 to 350 a week is the loop hole they should have fixed at the beginning. Actually it should have been your net pay in my opinion that you got as payment. If someone was on 500 a week , it should have been 400 ish, 1000/ 650 or so, 100/100. It would have still worked out close to what we are paying now. But that’s just my opinion which is all it is, an opinion, and worth no more than yours.

@Sara Davis: I agree with your point , so why do we pay public servants full-pay to stay at home, since last March many of which do not work from home and thats a lot more that 350, what has that cost the tax payer. It seem to me it depends who you are and as we well know the privater sector always gets hit first.

@Sara Davis: If it’s a financial windfall to make minimum wage every week you were in a dire position to begin with.

I don’t feel anyone with a 0 Hour contract should agree to go back to work without minimum hour guarantees.

@John Egan: tell ya what why don’t you pay double to them yourself, I couldn’t disagree strongly enough ,

@Chris Quigley: refuse your old job back because you earn more on the 350 and you lose it.

@Carla R: yeah… but you werent!

@MB: Seasonal workers in the tourist industry would have been on minimal hours early in the year but normally be working full time now. So that doesn’t work.

@MB: If they were to do that for 1.5m applicants it’d be a 6 month waiting list for anyone to receive any payment. The whole point of a set fee is to prevent the costs and time for processing.

@MB: Yeah but that doesn’t really work for seasonal industries. My own example of being a Wedding Photographer, December-February is generally quiet, in-fact late Nov’19 to last weekend in Feb ’20 I had no income and solely reliant on savings built up over the busier summer season (as is usually the case and planned for).

Under your proposal I’d get 70% of nothing, when in fact to date I’ve still received less in PUP than I paid in income tax last year (which I paid in January since I don’t like waiting until the October deadline, again having planned to do so and saved for over the busy season).

And with no clear guidance in the roadmap around weddings & events my next confirmed job isn’t until late september and some couples for october – december rescheduled anyway rather than taking the chance.

@MB: Nice idea but the antiques we have in the public service would take years to process all that

@Carla R: Exactly why those on maternity leave complained.

@MB: But January to mid February is the time when the likes of Retail workers are working their least hours, because it is the quietest period. How would that be fair?

@Josephus Miller: grand, your average over the year then.

@Craic_a_tower: nope. Still part time. Even as a part timer i had to send my application myself ( directives given by my HR). All the people who employed full time got payment automatically and were applied by employer. The thing is that after 2008 recetion hotels and some other business have probably half of staff working full time on part time contracts. So in case of new recession they can just drop hours and people will leave themselves rather then do redundancies.

@Oleksandr Savitskyy: 48 hours is not part time though

@Shell: but i am on a part time contract. The government and employer calculate from that. Because of amount of applications nobody was and is looking on how many hours u worked. U just fill in a single page form and send it to Social and they already had the list of employers. Does not matter how many hours u worked

@Shell: what he means is he’s on a part time contract. I.e. not permanent full time.

@Shell: about 80% of employees in the hospitality industry are on part time contracts, even if they work 35 hours or more per week. Legally speaking, we are part time employees with flexible hours. Plenty of weeks where I worked 50, 60 and 70 hours in a week. Full time means you have an agreed-upon number of hours at, say, 39, 40 or whatever number of hours which you must be paid for and anything above that counts as overtime which is paid at a higher rate. Those in hospitality are paid the same rate, irrespective of number of hours worked, be that 8 or 68 per week, and now the government wants to punish these insecure workers while those with better security get a higher rate to ensure them yet even more security.

@Shell: as i understand it works very basic , nobody is looking into how much tax u paid or hours worked. The government has a list of employers. All the full time workers applications were sent by employer and the got payments direct to their account same as wage. Part timers send applications by themselves with bank details on it. Then ppl in social check your name on the list and confirm. So now i will get paid the same as someone who worked 5 hours a week. The other thing for me is amazing for me that the government bowed under pressure from the people who lucky to keep their jobs and are very concerned that the student next door getting rich with ” big money ” for 3 months. It is shows how easy to devide ppl. The public was not that concerned during bailing the corrupt bankers or with current property crisis which is just amazing.

@Oleksandr Savitskyy: you really need to look up employment law because it doesn’t matter what your contract says if you work full time hours for a prolonged period. The government do not hold records of who is a part time employee or not. You also sound like you are mixing up PUP and employers paying. You have said so much that is not correct that you need to start looking up actual information from official sources.

@Craic_a_tower: I was not looking for information from official sources as most my life i worked and it is right on what u wrote for normal circumstances if i become unemployed . But as I understand u work for yourself and dont know how Covid 19 payments payments to employees were orginized. I described the process above. The amount of applications is that high that they had to shut down passport office to deal with them . People were split in 2 groups. Full time contract and part time contract. I could be wrong and we may see it in forseen future that those cuts will work the same. Nobody will look at the cases individually as it will require additional staff and will take months to process. Like this not what I read on social media. This is reality on how i am getting paid.

@Craic_a_tower: Given your knowledge of employment law may be u can help me. Last 1.5 years i worked on average 48 hours per week. Why as per government guidelines my employer asked me to apply for Covid 19 myself as a part time worker compare to full time workers who were applied by employer and got payments direct to their accounts?

@Oleksandr Savitskyy: As you understand it would be wrong. I am self employed but work on the Covid 19 payment system for the DEASP. So yes I know it very well. No the passport office was not closed to process claims. People are not divided into part time and full time. You are mixing up employer payments which are discretionary and PUP. Your employer decided that they would treat their part time staff differently. Go to citizen advice and look up employment contracts as you will need a lot more information than can be posted here. As I understand what you are saying and the law you should have a full time contract as you have been working full time long enough. Don’t get your information from random sources but go to official channels.

@Oleksandr Savitskyy: Curious as to why you didn’t update your status as full-time with your company prior to the pandemic?

@Brian Ó Dálaigh: Wonder how people could stop those unfair employment practices?

@Hana Barbera: It gives companies in the industry the flexibility to reduce staff hours when business is slow. This is ideal for the hospitality sector in, say, midweek in January when people aren’t going out as much or staying overnight in hotels, and allows companies to reduce overheads when income is low. Many, but not all, who are employed in the industry are students and this suits them, too, as they can work weekends while studying midweek. But, these terms of employment are provided irrespective of your age or student status. Usually, those not in school pick up the hours during midweek. But, they are still liable for reduced hours, too. So, we are part time flexible workers and will likely have our payments reduced, even though we may have worked more hours than 9-5 jobs.

@Brian Ó Dálaigh: I agree wholeheartedly with what you are saying about flexible employment in the hospitality trade. Did it when I was college and it worked great. Lots of people appreciate such work with many a small village dependant on a large local estates for extra money. The problem here is they weren’t doing that they had a person working full time while saying they were part time. If a part time person does the same hours as a full time employee they are entitled to be a full time employee. What they did here was let all their part time staff go and keep the full time on the books. I don’t think Olekasandr understands that. Even if you argue the full time staff do over 48 hours there is a problem because that is illegal to prolong and only allowed once the average comes down to 48

@Craic_a_tower: And they get away with it because it’s not prolonged. They will give you 3 or 4 weeks of over full time hours followed by a couple of weeks of less than 24 hours or even less. Any complaints about the hours or attempts to claim full time and you will find yourself rostered for zero hours.

@Oleksandr Savitskyy: its highly possible that you are better off on the PUP. If you are classed as a part time worker, you will have a minimum hourly contract be it 8,12,20 hrs or similar. The Wage Subsidy Scheme pays 70% , and its discretionary what the employer pays, ie weather they top this up or not. I’m no expert, but I do have a slight understanding of how it all works. If the Wage Subsidy works on contracted hrs rather than average hours worked over a certain period, I’d imagine you are definitely better off. Notwithstanding, it seems that your employer is pulling a fast one If you are continuously working full time hrs, on a low hr contract, and possibly not acting within the boundaries of Employment Law.

@Hana Barbera: This is the way hospitality sector works now after 2008 so instead of redundancies companies can just drop your hours. In most places. The contract is kind of fair and legal. Also on part time contract u get paid per hour. In hospitality if u are on full time contract hotel will give u hours back. The thing is normally if u not happy with hours u go for another job. I am happy with my employed, wage and especially location as i dont have to commute to Dublin. My concern is that with payments cuts i will be treated as part timer.

@Craic_a_tower: Thank you and “cars” for the advise. I look into it and if i see u some time on The Journal will tell u the result.

@Brian Ó Dálaigh: that really wouldn’t work an not what was said

@Brian Ó Dálaigh: I have a full time job, specified 40 hours in my contract. On a fixed salary. I regularly work 50+ hours per week. No extra money. Yes I’m guaranteed the 40, but a lot of salary paid people work longer than 40 hours per week.

@Derek Poutch:
You need to learn what an Escrow account is. That’s where the money stays until the court makes a decision on the original EU ruling. It’s not available to anyone to do with as they wish, either the state or Apple.

@Paul O’Sullivan: that’s great if and when we get it but for now we need people back to work and get the economy moving again

@Derek Poutch: their companies are worth that I don’t think they have it in cash sitting in the personal savings account

@Daniel Kelly: then the temporary unemployed will be the high earners

@Ian Breathnach: what about a company getting paid 410 euro per week per employee that is paying 70 per cent of their small wages and pocketing the difference. Why is it the less well off that always deserve nothing and why do the already well off get a free pass on their immoral earnings that we all have to pay for

@Mary Brennan: The payment was/is absolutely deserved to anyone working for a living . However the system is being completely abused. Just this week we hear about Romanian gangs who never worked here drawing this payment.. do we allow them to continue. … and I know several students living at home with their parents drawing the payment. They get any tax they pay back from their part time jobs.

@Sean Salmon: Per Leo they’ll take that up where they find that happening and there will be strict penalties for it. He also said this isn’t a time for ”what ifs”. If you know someone doing that, surely there’s a hotline set up to complain.

@Mary Brennan: it makes no sense to continue paying 350 to part time workers. There will be no incentive to return to work. We need everyone back to work ASAP otherwise the country will be on its knees again

@Sean Salmon: it’s 70% up to €410, what’s your point. All the figures are entered into Revenue’s system so it’s all transparent. If you know wrongdoings is welfare fraud report these companies.

@Ian Breathnach: God forbid someone low paid possibly with a min hour contract, or someone who works part time because they can’t get full time work manages to win the feckin lotto by getting €350 from the government for a few month. What about teachers and civil servants at home on full salaries.

@Sean Salmon: what’s immoral about a ahead working person earning good money?

@John fitzpatrick: *hard working