If you have 19 or less employees, Single Touch Payroll (STP) will be required as the mandatory required way of reporting tax and super information to the ATO as of 1 July 2019.
If you are using a solution that offers STP reporting, such as payroll or accounting software, you will send your employees’ tax and super information to the ATO each time you run your payroll and pay your employees. The information is sent to the ATO directly from your software, or through a third party – such as a sending service provider.
Reporting can start anytime from 1 July – 30 September 2019. However, if you find you need to apply for more time to get ready you will be required to apply for a deferral.
The bonus of STP, is that once you start, you wont need to produce payment summaries or an annual report.
So, what do you do to get ready? See if you fit into one of these common scenarios:
You need to ‘opt in’. This is found in the payroll menu, select pay employees and in the message about ‘Seamless reporting with Single Touch Payroll (STP)’ click get started and work through all the prompts.
You need to enable STP. Open Quickbooks, click employees, payroll settings, ATO settings, select that you will be lodging as the Employer, complete the information on this page, click save. Then click the ‘Electronic Lodgement and STP tab’, then call the ATO on 1300 852 232 to register your software ID then click enable Single Touch Software.
MYOB have specific instructions on how to set up STP which are available on their website.
If you have four or less employees and you don’t currently use payroll software, there will be other ways to report STP information.
- The ATO have asked software developers to build no-cost and low-cost STP solutions for micro employers. A list of companies intending to offer these solutions is available on the ATO site.
- You will also have the option for us as your tax agent to report your STP information quarterly, rather than each time you run payroll. This option will be available until 30 June 2021.
This is the situation where you trade out of a company or trust and only family members are employed. A one-year exemption for closely held entities is in place for the 2019 – 2020 year with STP reporting for these payees to commence from 1 July 2020.
You will be exempt from reporting closely held payees during 2019-2020. However, all other employees (arms-length employees) must be reported through STP from 1 July 2019, or a deferred start date if one has been granted. Payment summaries for closely held employees can be lodged up to the due date of your 2019 income tax return.
