General Medical Service (GMS) Scheme payments to medical practitioners

Revenue have introduced a new provision in relation to the correct treatment of income received by General Practitioners (GPs) who enter into a contract with the HSE to participate in the General Medical Service (GMS) Scheme.

Income received under a GMS contract belongs to the individual GP who has entered into the contract with the HSE.

In general, a GP is chargeable to income tax on income arising from the GP’s GMS contract as it is income from a profession carried on by the GP. Therefore, a GP who holds a GMS contract is:

1. A chargeable person in respect of income arising under the contract and should report that income under the self-assessment regime. The income will be subject to income tax at the GP’s marginal rate of income tax. USC and PRSI will also apply.
2. The specified person for the purposes of Professional Services Withholding Tax (PSWT) and, therefore, the person who may, where the relevant criteria are met, claim a credit for PSWT deducted on a GMS payment by the HSE.

The new provision provides that where individual GPs enter into contracts with the HSE to provide certain medical professional services and they provide those services in the conduct of a partnership profession with other individual GPs, the income from those professional services can be treated for income tax purposes as that of the partnership.

In other words, GMS income of an individual GP may be treated as income of the partnership in which the GP is a partner for income tax purposes.

This treatment only applies in the case of partnerships involving partners who are all individuals and only where a valid joint election is made by the GP partner and the medical partnership concerned. In all other circumstances, the general tax treatment outlined above will apply.

Each partner must complete a Medical Partnership Joint Election form which must be submitted by the medical partnership to Revenue through MyEnquiries. A joint election will take effect on the later of 1 January 2024 or the date on which it is made.

To allow GPs and medical partnerships time to make the necessary arrangements (submission of a joint election form to Revenue and the subsequent notification of the medical partnership tax reference number to the HSE), Revenue will accept that relevant income paid in January 2024, and associated PSWT credits, may be treated as income/PSWT credits of the medical partnership where a joint election is in place and the requisite notification is made to the HSE by 31 January 2024.

Employed GPs

The above does not apply to employed GPs who are not partners in a partnership. Employed GPs will be required to declare their GMS income under the self-assessment regime from 1 January 2024.

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