Reminder about staff payroll, superannuation and tax changes from July 1

From 1 July 2019 all businesses will be required to report their staff payroll and superannuation details to the Australian Tax Office (ATO) digitally, via the Single Touch Payroll (STP) system. The STP system is being implemented to streamline all payment information, and requires employers to lodge details of payroll when it is run, rather than months afterwards.

The New South Wales branch of the Australian Childcare Alliance recently issued an alert to their members, warning of their concern that many early childhood education and care (ECEC) services who do not use digital software to process staff pay and super may be caught out by the upcoming changes.

Many accounting and payroll solutions which offer STP reporting through their software systems automate this process, with the relevant information sent to the ATO directly from the software, or through a third party, such as a sending service provider.  

If you are an ECEC service using a software provider, such as MYOB or Xero, the provider will be able to tell you more about the type of STP solution they offer. The ATO has a list of available STP solutions here.

There are a number of options available to employers who do not use payroll software, such as no cost and low cost STP solutions. The options open to the employer are determined by the number of employees they have on their payroll.

For those employers with 20 or more employees, reporting through STP should have already commenced, unless an extension has been applied for. For those with 19 employees or less, STP reporting must commence from the start of the new financial year – 1 July 2019.

Employers with four employees or less will have additional options open to them.