A first time Statutory Sick Pay entitlement for all employees moved closer to enactment with the announcement recently, by the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Leo Varadkar TD, that the Government has approved the publication of the General Scheme of the Sick Leave Bill 2022.

The Bill legislates for a statutory sick pay scheme for all employees, phased in over a four-year period. The new scheme will start with three days per year once the Bill is enacted, rising to five days in 2024, seven days in 2025, and ten days in 2026. The timeline has shifted slightly since the Government first announced details of the proposed scheme last year when it said there would be 10 days of sick leave by 2025.

An extension of the Debt Warehousing scheme will also now facilitate those eligible for the scheme to warehouse or ‘park’ certain tax liabilities (e.g. PAYE, VAT) arising in in the period from 1 January to 31 March 2022 (previously the cut-off was 31 December 2021).

As a result, the interest free period will now run from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023.

The businesses must already be eligible for warehousing and have a valid claim during the period from 1 January 2022 to 30 April 2022 for any of the following Government COVID-19 Support Schemes:

EII is a tax relief which encourages individuals to provide equity based finance to trading companies by allowing individuals to obtain Income Tax relief on investments for shares in certain qualifying companies. Since October 2019 the tax relief of up to 40% of the investment made is available in full in the year of investment.

An individual who has made a qualifying investment on or after 1 January 2020 can claim relief on investments up to a maximum of €250,000 per year of assessment. Please note that shares must be retained for at least 4 years. Alternatively, an individual who has made a qualifying investment on or after 1 January 2020 can claim relief on investments up to a maximum of €500,000 per year of assessment subject to the following:

•  An investor must ‘elect’ to retain those shares for a period of 7 years in order to claim the maximum relief. The election must be made at the time of the share issue.
  
• An investor cannot then ‘opt out’ of the election at a later date before the 7 years expired without suffering a clawback of the total relief initially claimed.

Where an investor invests an amount greater than the maximum amount allowed in a year, the excess over the maximum amount can be carried forward against future Income Tax liabilities. A Statement of Qualification (SOQ) must be issued by the qualifying company within 4 months after the end of the year in which shares are issued.

Finance Act 2021 extended this relief by a further 3 years to 31 December 2024.

Operating a successful eCommerce website requires you to consider a lot of elements to make it successful. To get you started, here are five fundamental tips that you can use to optimise your eCommerce store for success.

​1. Improve the checkout process
​On average, 70% of online shoppers abandon their basket at checkout. Creating a checkout process that is simple and offers flexibility for the customer is crucial to improving the on-site conversion rate. Removing outdated or unnecessary fields, and offering flexible payment options at the checkout are examples of how you can improve your checkout process.

Help to Buy (HTB) incentive helps all first time buyers buy a newly built house, apartment or self- build home. It only applies to properties that cost €500,000 or less. The incentive which has been extended by Revenue to 31 December 2022, gives a refund of Income Tax and Deposit Interest Retention Tax (DIRT) paid in Ireland over the previous 4 years. An individual cannot claim relief on PRSI or USC. An individual can claim a tax refund based on the income tax they have already paid, to the lessor of:

• €30,000
• 10% of the purchase price of the property
• 10% of the completion value of a self build
•  The amount of Income Tax and DIRT you paid for the previous 4 years. 
• The refund is paid to a bank account you hold with your loan provider.