PHECC made €812K voluntary declaration to Revenue

The Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council (PHECC) made an unprompted voluntary declaration of €812,000 to the Revenue Commissioners. The issue arose on account of misclassifying the tax status of external assessors.

A spokesperson for PHECC informed the Medical Independent (MI) that the Department of Health provided additional funding of €450,000 as part of addressing the tax liability. No further monies are due to Revenue arising from the matter. The Department has also provided extra funding of approximately €100,000 in 2025 for costs associated with the change in tax status of assessors.

According to PHECC’s 2023 financial statements, a “query” was raised in 2021 in relation to payments to its panel of external assessors between 2018 and 2022. A formal review was carried out in 2022 and early 2023 to determine the tax status of the assessors and any tax liability.

“The report which was received in July 2023 found that the assessors were in fact employees,” according to notes to the financial statements.

“In December 2023, an amount of €300k was paid to the Revenue Commissioners as part of a voluntary declaration and an additional €512k was paid in 2024, once detailed calculations had been carried out and submitted to the Revenue Commissioners. The total payment [of] €812k included interest of €183k.”

In 2023, the Department’s allocation to PHECC was just over €2,951,000, which was an increase from approximately €2,431,000 in 2022.

PHECC is an independent statutory body which sets the standards for education and training for pre-hospital emergency care. The Council publishes clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) and recognises institutions to provide pre-hospital emergency care training and education.

In addition to maintaining a statutory register of practitioners, the Council approves pre-hospital emergency care service providers to implement CPGs.

The PHECC spokesperson told MI: “PHECC has a number of assessor panels it employs to act on its behalf. These include examiners, auditors, and assessors who review recognition of qualification applications and continuing professional competence submissions. There has been no reduction in assessor numbers as a result of the change to assessor employment status.”