The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) have finally released some information about the JobKeeper registration process on 14 April 2020.

We have provided a link below to the webpage on the ATO’s website and a detailed publication from the NTAA on the Job Keeper.

1)     https://www.ato.gov.au/general/jobkeeper-payment/employers/enrol-and-apply-for-the-jobkeeper-payment/

2)     http://www.agsfinancialgroup.com.au/sites/default/files/NTAA-JobKeeper-Document.pdf

We have summarised some of the key points below:

 

ENROLMENT IS REQUIRED

• From 20 April onwards you can enrol with the ATO for the JobKeeper payment. A reminder that the previous registration that was encouraged by the Government was merely to receive updates on the JobKeeper legislation and other information.
• Enrolment will need to be made online via the ATO’s Business Portal, or your Tax Agent via their Online Services.
• To be eligible from the first JobKeeper fortnight (30 March – 12 April), you need to be registered prior to 26 April 2020.
• You will need to estimate the number of employees who will be eligible for the first JobKeeper fortnight (30 March – 12 April). You will confirm the actual number of employees at a later date.

If you don’t have access to the ATO’s Business Portal, we encourage you to contact AGS to assist you with this process, or facilitate enrolment on your behalf.

 

CONFIRMATION OF ELIGIBLE EMPLOYEES IS REQUIRED

• You will need to notify each of your employees that they are being nominated for the JobKeeper payment.
• The required nomination notice can be found at this link – https://www.ato.gov.au/workarea/downloadasset.aspx?id=62161
• Please note that it is the employees responsibly to acknowledge nomination and sign a declaration that they are not already nominated by another employer. This form does not need to be lodged anywhere, but held by you as the employer to confirm your total number of eligible employees.
• You need to ensure that you have paid each eligible employee a minimum of $1,500 per fortnight for each JobKeeper period. If you haven’t already done so, we recommend ensuring a backpayment is made to get all employees up to date by 26 April 2020. The wage payment is a condition of eligibility and needs to be made in order to receive reimbursement from the ATO.
• During your application process – if you have a Single Touch Payroll (STP) solution enabled, your employees will be prefilled for you to confirm. If you don’t have STP enabled your Tax Agent will need to submit a manual report on your behalf.

 

ESTABLISHING YOUR ELIGIBILITY – THE TURNOVER REQUIREMENT

It has been widely communicated that a business’ turnover needs to have dropped by 30% for entities with less than $1billion in aggregated turnover.

For this purpose, the turnover calculation is based on GST turnover – essentially total sales recorded on your activity statements. The ATO website indicates that more information will be provided soon on how to apply this test.

We understand that this will be a modified test that will allow you to compare actual results for a month or a quarter with a similar period in a prior year. They will also have the ability for you to self assess that projected turnover relative to a prior period will meet the criteria.

The ATO commissioner will also have discretion to cater for Businesses with unusual or highly variable turnover in the form of additional testing criteria.

 

ONGOING REPORTING AND REQUIREMENTS

• Once you meet the decline in turnover test – you don’t need to retest in future periods to continue to receive the JobKeeper. Once you meet the test, you will continue to meet this requirement even if your turnover subsequently recovers in later JobKeeper fortnights.
• If you don’t satisfy the turnover requirement at the start of the program, but subsequently your turnover falls to the point where you do qualify that is fine. You can register to receive the payment at a later time.
• Each month you will need to reconfirm that your reported eligible employees have not changed through the ATO. If eligible employees change or leave employment, this will need to be reported through your monthly JobKeeper declaration.

Published : 15 Apr 2020