Single Touch Payroll

• Managing a Business

Single Touch Payroll (“STP”) is a reporting change for employers. It starts from 1 July 2018 for employers with 20 or more employees.

You will report payments such as salaries and wages, pay as you go (PAYG) withholding and superannuation information from your payroll software solution each time you pay your employees

STP will be expanded to include employers with 19 or less employees from 1 July 2019. This is subject to legislation being passed in parliament. c

Once you start reporting to the ATO through your STP-enabled software you will be sending the ATO your tax and superannuation information on or before each pay day. This is called a ‘pay event’. You will be able to make corrections to the information you have sent to the ATO. You can do this through an ‘update event’, or in the next regular pay event.

There are mandatory payments that you must report, voluntary payments that you can choose to report, and some payments you can’t report with STP.

For more on Elevate Bookkeeping services

The following items are mandatory reporting items for STP:

• A payment to an employee, such as salary or wages
• A payment of remuneration to the director of a company
• A payment to an office holder (for example, a member of the Defence Force)
• A payment to a religious practitioner
• A return to work payment to an individual
• A payment for termination of employment
• An unused leave payment
• A payment of parental leave payA payment to an employee under the Seasonal Labour Mobility Program

Further information is available from the ATO website. To ensure that your accounting software is ready for the STP commencement on 1 July 2018, contact us for a free consultation.