Single Touch Payroll (STP) is a government initiative to streamline business reporting obligations. Commencing 1 July 2018, if you have 20 or more employees, you’ll need to use Single Touch Payroll-enabled software to report your Gross wages and Superannuation information to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), every pay period.
You will be subject to the STP guidelines if you employed 20 or more employees on 1 April 2018.
If you are part of a company group, you must include the total number of employees employed by all member companies of the wholly-owned group.
Determining the number of your employees.
Include;
- full-time employees
- part-time employees
- casual employees and seasonal workers who are on your payroll on 1 April and worked any time during March
- employees based overseas, and
- any employee absent or on leave (paid or unpaid).
Do not include;
- any employees who ceased work before 1 April
- casual employees who did not work in March
- independent contractors
- staff provided by a third-party labour hire organisation
- company directors
- office holders, and
- religious practitioners.
Getting ready for STP.
Speak to your payroll software provider to find how they will offer Single Touch Payroll (STP) reporting – this may be through an update to your existing software, or an additional service.
Review your business processes to make sure your payroll staff know about Single Touch Payroll, ensuring employees are being paid correctly including superannuation entitlements and that all employee information is accurate, including names, addresses and date of birth records.
Should you prefer, please do not hesitate to contact Dillon Partners to assist you with this transition.
What will be reported?
You will be reporting wages, pay as you go (PAYG) withholding and super information to the ATO from your payroll software at the same time you pay your employees.
What’s changing?
- It is expected you may not need to provide payment summaries to your employees at the end of financial year when you report through Single Touch Payroll.
- Your employees will be able to see their year-to-date tax and super information through myGov.
- In the future, Single Touch Payroll information will be used to prefill your activity statement.
