€27m collected in taxes linked to mislabelling of workers as self-employed

Eva Osborne

€27 million has been collected in taxes linked to the misclassification of workers as self-employed.

The Revenue Commissioners said 280 voluntary disclosures were made in relation to more than 6,600 employees.

It means some businesses were treating staff as self-employed when they should have been employees.

Gross tax adjustments of €26.7 million have been processed, according to the Irish Examiner.

Revenue Chairperson Niall Cody is due before the Public Accounts Committee on Thursday to discuss the findings.

Cody will tell the committee that while the “tax risks associated with misclassification are not new”, the Supreme Court’s Karshan judgement of October 2023 means that “the landscape has changed for businesses”.

Karshan, otherwise known as the Domino’s Pizza drivers case, saw the court rule in favour of Revenue, which asserted that those workers were full employees of the company as opposed to self-employed contractors.

The case was the most significant in Irish legal history in terms of the bogus self-employed — people doing the same work as full-time employees of an employer but without any of the benefits like holiday and sick pay and pension contributions, the Irish Examiner reported.

Bogus self-employment traditionally affects many sectors, notably construction and media.