Just a heads up of in terms of real time payroll reporting in the future.

The government and ATO are not satisfied with some employers efforts to pay their staff super so they are working to get real time reporting in place by employers through payroll software providers.

‘Single Touch Payroll’ is a term that is being used to describe the situation where your payroll software automatically tells the ATO when you have paid your employees, the PAYGW amounts and when super is also paid.  So the ATO will be able to more easily ensure compliance with PAYGW and super obligations.

Xero will or should be capable of handling all this when it starts on 1 July 2018 for large employers.  Note there is a bill in parliament attempting to apply Single Touch Payroll to ALL employers from 1 July 2019, not yet law.

Who are Larger Employers – if you had 20 or more employees – whether they be part time, full time, casual at 1 April 2018 – this system should apply to you from 1 July 2018.  (if software providers are capable by then)

It’s going to be easier in the next couple of years for the ATO to enforce compliance around PAYGW and super obligations, notably identify employers not paying super by the due date and hit them with penalty SG charge assessments resulting in significant costs for non compliance – it will put further importance on ensuring a business has sufficient cash flow to meet these obligations in the first instance (especially super where no payment arrangement is possible).

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