Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Stephen  Tuite

Radius Vehicle Solutions

Representatives

 Kennedys Law

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 6 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1991

CA-00065193-001

03/08/2024

The Complainant was employed as a Business Development Executive with the Respondent. He left his employment on 16 May 2024. He stated that an amount of EUR 3,149 was deducted from his May salary that he had not been made aware of.

The Complainant stated that an amount of EUR 3,149 was deducted from his May 2024 salary that he had not been made aware of by the Respondent. He did not learn of the deduction until 31 July 2024 because payslips had not been furnished to him.

The Respondent stated that the Complainant received all payslips which are available through an online portal. When he left employment on 16 May 2024 however, he no longer had access to the portal and requested his final payslips by email on 28 June 2024. He was provided with these by email from the Respondent’s Head of Finance on the same day, 28 June 2024.

The Respondent queried the figure of EUR 3,149 raised by the Complainant and stated that they believed that he meant a figure of €3,049.49. They stated that this figure, which was outlined in his May 2024 payslip represented the nominal value of the Benefit in Kind (BIK) for the use of the company car provided to him.

It was asserted that this figure of EUR 3,149 is calculated by Revenue using a formula which takes a range of various factors into account such as the original market value of the car and that at no point was €3,049.49 or any other money owing to him. The total tax deducted from the Complainant’s salary in respect of BIK for the month ending 31 May 2024 was €1,463.76

The Law:

Section 5 of the Act states as follows:

(1) An employer shall not make a deduction from the wages of an employee (or receive any payment from an employee) unless—

(a) the deduction (or payment) is required or authorised to be made by virtue of any statute or any instrument made under statute,

(b) the deduction (or payment) is required or authorised to be made by virtue of a term of the employee's contract of employment included in the contract before, and in force at the time of, the deduction or payment, or

(c) in the case of a deduction, the employee has given his prior consent in writing to it.

(2) An employer shall not make a deduction from the wages of an employee in respect of—

(a) any act or omission of the employee, or

(b) any goods or services supplied to or provided for the employee by the employer the supply or provision of which is necessary to the employment,

unless—

(i) the deduction is required or authorised to be made by virtue of a term (whether express or implied and, if express, whether oral or in writing) of the contract of employment made between the employer and the employee, and

(ii) the deduction is of an amount that is fair and reasonable having regard to all the circumstances (including the amount of the wages of the employee), and

(iii) before the time of the act or omission or the provision of the goods or services, the employee has been furnished with—

(I) in case the term referred to in subparagraph (i) is in writing, a copy thereof,

(II) in any other case, notice in writing of the existence and effect of the term,

and

(iv) in case the deduction is in respect of an act or omission of the employee, the employee has been furnished, at least one week before the making of the deduction, with particulars in writing of the act or omission and the amount of the deduction, and

(v) in case the deduction is in respect of compensation for loss or damage sustained by the employer as a result of an act or omission of the employee, the deduction is of an amount not exceeding the amount of the loss or the cost of the damage, and

(vi) in case the deduction is in respect of goods or services supplied or provided as aforesaid, the deduction is ofan amount not exceeding the cost to the employer of the goods or services, and

(vii) the deduction or, if the total amount payable to the employer by the employee in respect of the act or omission or the goods or services is to be so paid by means of more than one deduction from the wages of the employee, the first such deduction is made not later than 6 months after the act or omission becomes known to the employer or, as the case may be, after the provision of the goods or services.

(3) (a) An employer shall not receive a payment from an employee in respect of a matter referred to in subsection (2) unless, if the payment were a deduction, it would comply with that subsection.

(b) Where an employer receives a payment in accordance with paragraph (a) he shall forthwith give a receipt for the payment to the employee.

(4) A term of a contract of employment or other agreement whereby goods or services are supplied to or provided for an employee by an employer in consideration of the making of a deduction by the employer from the wages of the employee or the making of a payment to the employer by the employee shall not be enforceable by the employer unless the supply or provision and the deduction or payment complies with subsection (2).

(5) Nothing in this section applies to—

(a) a deduction made by an employer from the wages of an employee, or any payment received from an employee by an employer, where—

(i) the purpose of the deduction or payment is the reimbursement of the employer in respect of—

(I) any overpayment of wages, or

(II) any overpayment in respect of expenses incurred by the employee in carrying out his employment,

made (for any reason) by the employer to the employee, and

(ii) the amount of the deduction or payment does not exceed the amount of the overpayment,

or

(b) a deduction made by an employer from the wages of an employee, or any payment received from an employee by an employer, in consequence of any disciplinary proceedings if those proceedings were held by virtue of a statutory provision, or

(c) a deduction made by an employer from the wages of an employee in pursuance of a requirement imposed on the employer by virtue of any statutory provision to deduct and pay to a public authority, being a Minister of the Government, the Revenue Commissioners or a local authority for the purposes of the Local Government Act 2001 (as amended by the Local Government Reform Act 2014), amounts determined by that authority as being due to it from the employee, if the deduction is made in accordance with the relevant determination of that authority, or

(d) a deduction made by an employer from the wages of an employee in pursuance of any arrangements—

(i) which are in accordance with a term of a contract made between the employer and the employee to whose inclusion in the contract the employee has given his prior consent in writing, or

(ii) to which the employee has otherwise given his prior consent in writing,

and under which the employer deducts and pays to a third person amounts, being amounts in relation to which he has received a notice in writing from that person stating that they are amounts due to him from the employee, if the deduction is made in accordance with the notice and the amount thereof is paid to the third person not later than the date on which it is required by the notice to be so paid, or

(e) a deduction made by an employer from the wages of an employee, or any payment received from an employee by his employer, where the employee has taken part in a strike or other industrial action and the deduction is made or the payment has been required by the employer on account of the employee’s having taken part in that strike or other industrial action, or

(f) a deduction made by an employer from the wages of an employee with his prior consent in writing, or any payment received from an employee by an employer, where the purpose of the deduction or payment is the satisfaction (whether wholly or in part) of an order of a court or tribunal requiring the payment of any amount by the employee to the employer, or

(g) a deduction made by an employer from the wages of an employee where the purpose of the deduction is the satisfaction (whether wholly or in part) of an order of a court or tribunal requiring the payment of any amount by the employer to the court or tribunal or a third party out of the wages of the employee.

(6) Where—

(a) the total amount of any wages that are paid on any occasion by an employer to an employee is less than the total amount of wages that is properly payable by him to the employee on that occasion (after making any deductions therefrom that fall to be made and are in accordance with this Act), or

(b) none of the wages that are properly payable to an employee by an employer on any occasion (after making any such deductions as aforesaid) are paid to the employee,

then, except in so far as the deficiency or non-payment is attributable to an error of computation, the amount of the deficiency or non-payment shall be treated as a deduction made by the employer from the wages of the employee on the occasion.

Findings:

I note firstly that there was no non statutory deduction made from the Complainant’s pay in May 2024. Rather I find that the figure of EUR 3,049, outlined in his May 2024 payslip, represented the nominal value of the Benefit in Kind (BIK) for the use of the company car provided to him by the Respondent.

I also note that the total tax deducted from his salary in respect of the BIK for the month of May 2024 was €1,463.76. As this was a statutory deduction, as set out in section 5 (1) of the Act above, there was no requirement on the Respondent to give advance notice in writing of same to the Complainant. Accordingly, I find that this complaint is not well founded.

I find that this complaint is not well founded for the reasons set out above.