No ERR Penalties from Revenue Before July 2024

Enhanced Reporting Requirements (ERR) has now entered its third month, and reporting expenses should now (hopefully) be part of your routine. However, Revenue has acknowledged the burden that’s been put on employers and agents to implement ERR processes since its introduction.

Service for compliance approach

Revenue understand that complying to these new regulations will take some time getting used to, so ‘a service for compliance’ approach will be taken until the 30th of June 2024. This will act as a transition phase, giving employers and agents a chance to adjust to their new reporting obligations over a six-month period.

Also, Revenue won’t seek to apply any ERR-related penalties for non-compliance until at least July 2024, during this ‘service for compliance’ approach.

Quick reminder: Three categories to report under Enhanced Reporting Requirements

Here are the three categories that must be reported under ERR.

Please note that this only relates to Phase 1 of ERR, and there has been no word from Revenue on when future phases will be implemented.

1. Small benefit

Employers can give employees up to two, tax-free, small benefits each year with a combined value of up to €1,000. This is usually in the form of a voucher (e.g. One4All).

What do you need to report?

The value of the benefit and the payment date.

2. Travel and subsistence payments

This is when an employee’s required to travel on business journeys and the employer covers their travel and subsistence costs (e.g. the cost of flights, taxis, accommodation and food expenses). The subcategories of travel and subsistence expenses which must be reported under ERR include travel vouched and unvouched, subsistence vouched and unvouched, eating on site, site-based employees, and emergency travel.

What do you need to report?

The amount of each payment and the payment date.

3. Remote daily working allowance

This is when employers pay employees an allowance towards expenses related to remote working. Up to €3.20 per day can be paid tax-free (any excess is fully taxable) and covers additional costs that come with working from home (e.g. electricity, heat, telephone and broadband).

What do you need to report?

The total of number of days an employee’s receiving the allowance for, the amount paid and the payment date.

How to make Enhanced Reporting Requirements easier

Did you know that 40% of employers who submitted expenses to Revenue in January 2024 used BrightExpenses, our expense management and reporting software? Not only that, but 30,000 expenses were sent through BrightExpenses to Revenue in January 2024. This goes to show just how effective BrightExpenses is at streamlining the ERR process.

BrightExpenses is free to users of BrightPay, Thesaurus Payroll Manager, and Surf Payroll for 2024. To learn more about the software, click the link at the bottom of the page.

Here at Bright, we’re committed to providing you the latest legislative updates that relate to Irish payroll processors, including Enhanced Reporting Requirements. We’ve hosted many ERR webinars over the past couple of months, many which were joined by Martin Hunt from Revenue, and our payroll experts, Paul Byrne and MarkMcDonagh for the Q&A sessions.

Our next ERR is taking place on Thursday, the 11th of April at 11:00 am, where we’ll be joined again by a special guest from Revenue and our payroll experts to answer questions live. To register for our upcoming webinar, please click the links below.

Related articles:

• Enhanced Reporting Requirements is here! And so is BrightExpenses…

• 5 steps to prepare your business for Enhanced Reporting Requirements

• BrightExpenses simplifies Enhanced Reporting Requirements

This content may have been developed with the assistance of AI tools. Content is reviewed by a member of the Bright team before publication. Guidance on legislation can be obtained from your industry body.