The Irish Government has allocated €250M to the Restart Grant scheme which will provide payments of between €2,000 and €10,000 to help small businesses meet reopening costs after the lockdown is lifted. The payment amount will be based on each firm’s own 2019 commercial rates bills. This grant will be available to businesses with a turnover of less than €5M and fewer than 50 employees. Eligible companies are those that were forced to closed or suffered a reduction of 25% or more in turnover as a result of the crisis.Applications will be open from this Friday 22nd May, through the local authorities. https://www.localenterprise.ie/
REVENUE CONFIRMS ‘WAREHOUSING’ OF COVID-19 RELATED TAX DEBT FOR BUSINESSES
Earlier this month, the Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform, announced a further range of economic measures to support Irish businesses. This includes permitting Revenue to ‘warehouse’ VAT and Payroll tax debt that arose from COVID-19 related restrictions. Revenue has assured severely impacted businesses that it will continue to work with them to agree on payment arrangements. These measures will assist businesses to resume trading when the restrictions are lifted and support national recovery.Revenue has confirmed the following:
COVID-19 related VAT and Payroll tax debts, due from 1st March 2020 will be parked for a period of 12 months
No interest will accrue on tax debts for the 12-month period
Tax debts will carry a reduced interest rate of 3% (down from 10%) until the debt is paid
Flexible timeframe for payment of ‘warehoused’ debt depending on the business’s ability to repay
Warehousing arrangements will apply when all returns are filed in accordance with the Revenue guidance that has applied since the pandemic began
These exceptional measures will allow time for businesses to plan their recovery and deal with other liabilities which are not tax-related.