Emergency tax
Higher deductions your employer must make when it has no Revenue Payroll Notification for you. You get the extra back once Revenue issues one.
What it means
If your employer has no Revenue Payroll Notification for you, payroll has to use the emergency basis. You get no tax credits, USC is taken at 8% on everything, and the 20% band shrinks or disappears.
If you have given your PPS number, a weekly-paid employee gets a standard rate cut-off point of €846.16 in each of weeks 1 to 4 and none from week 5. Monthly-paid staff get €3,666.67 in month 1 and nothing after. Without a PPS number, all pay is taxed at 40% from day one.
To get off emergency tax, register the job in myAccount so Revenue can send your employer an RPN. Once your employer has it, payroll recalculates on the normal basis and the overpaid tax is refunded through your pay.
Example
On €900 a week from week 5 of emergency tax, income tax is €360 and USC is €72. Once the RPN arrives, a single person on the same pay has €113.85 income tax and €18.02 USC a week.