The Irish government has provided an amazing set of supports for business in these difficult times. Many small businesses have only been able to survive because of those supports and some of these will be transitioning from TWSS to EWSS this month.

In order to qualify you must have a Tax Clearance certificate and experience a 30% reduction in turnover or orders in the second half of 2020 and this must be caused by Covid 19. You can find the full notes from Revenue here https://www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/communications/documents/ewss-guidelines.pdf and within that document you can find templates supplied by Revenue for the purpose of documenting the 30% reduction.

In terms of the 30% reduction, I cannot over emphasize the need to document your rationale for applying for and accepting EWSS. To quote from Revenue’s document “Revenue expects that employers will retain evidence of appropriate documentation including copies of projections to demonstrate continued eligibility over the specified period. It is reasonably expected that the assumptions which underpin the projections will be reliable, will reflect the operating conditions of the business, and will remain materially unchanged. However, Revenue appreciates that in exceptional circumstances certain unforeseen events may occur which require the employer to revise the original budget estimate e.g. imposition of further Government restrictions (post the review date) impacting trade receipt of an unexpected donation, entering into a significant new sales contract etc.”

In simple terms, document it, review and update the documentation every month, keep the documentation for at least 7 years.

I would hope that you all have Tax Clearance. Certainly, if you have been using our online bookkeeping product, there is no reason not to be fully up to date with Revenue. Find out more at https://mindmybusiness.ie/