Payroll in Ireland

During the late 90s and early 2000s, the country experienced an economic boom, dubbed the Celtic Taiga.

Although Ireland's growth has leveled off in recent years, it's still a stable high-income economy.

The Irish economy is a strong economy.

It's a very different economy to other European countries of a comparable size.

GDP-wise, it's increasing around about 2% year on year.

Inflation is a strong place.

It hasn't spiked recently, but it's around about just under 3%, which is pretty consistent compared to continental Europe, the UK, and the US.

And employment, it's pretty much a full employment currently within Ireland.

So that creates a tight labor market in itself.

Now, going back to why Ireland's maybe slightly different to other economies of a similar kind of size, so Irish populations are about 5 million.

However, because of the uniqueness of the Irish economy, there's a high number of multinational organizations based out of Ireland.

Now, they're drawn to work in Ireland because their corporate tax rate is low, but they That's just probably one of the factors.

It's also a strong economy, well-regulated economy.

English speaking, obviously, is big in Ireland, so that makes it an easier place for multinationals to land.

And also, I think just the fact that as soon as you get some multinationals landing in the country, that tends to kind of create more.

Consequently, we see in Ireland probably at least twice as many multinationals based in Ireland compared to a comparable country of, I don't know, Denmark or Norway, that kind of size.

The presence of all these different multinationals also means there are quite a few expats working in Ireland, right? Are there complexities around hiring or processing expats that employers might not be aware of?

I mean, I think the key thing to remember with expats is the taxation isn't normal.

So you can't just set them up on a payroll and assume that they're going to be taxed in the same way as a normal PAYE employee.

What I mean by that is it can be very different for every single individual.

The circumstances really need to be taken into account.

So we would always advise our clients to get financial advice on exactly how to treat an expat employee.

Indeed, if they have two expats, they could be different to each other.

So it's very important that they pin down exactly what should be applied to each of those individuals.

So they could be resident in different countries where they should pay their equivalent of PAYE or where they should pay their national insurance, so their PRSI.