News

The Government’s “Coronavirus Economic Response Package” bill has now passed both houses of parliament.  The legislation gives powers to the Commission of Taxation to set the administrative processes and other rules.

The full details of how the JobKeeper payments are to administered is not yet available, and may not be available before the end of this week.

Until you know whether you are eligible, and details of how to record JK through payroll are available, you may run a risk if you start paying this to your employees.  In the meantime, you can start to look at your eligibility for the subsidy and to identify possible eligible employees.

In the meantime you could start working on some of the things we believe will be in the detail:

• Assess your business’s eligibility – If your business has suffered or may suffer, a 30% decline in business (some exceptions) as a result of the COVID-19 then this susidy may apply to you
• You will need to identify and nominate eligible employees
• You should check that the ATO has your current bank details

Sole Traders, Partnerships and Trusts

 There is some provision in the legislation for some these entities to receive JobKeeper payments.  Conditions apply, details are still sketchy

 Directors of companies not paid wages

 There may also be some provision for these people but, again, we need more details.

Treasury fact sheet 11 April 2020

With so many more people working from home, the tax office has issued detail of what you can and can’t claim.  There are also details of how you can calculate expenses.

You can see the full details here

For eligible employers, these are the details from the tax office:

“If you lodged your 2018–19 income tax return or an activity statement before12–March 2020, you do not need to apply for the cash flow boost. All you need to do is lodge your upcoming activity statements.

The cash flow boost will be automatically credited to your activity statement account.

You will not receive the cash flow boost before 28 April 2020, even if you lodge early.

If you have not lodged your 2018–19 income tax return or activity statements with us, you may still be eligible. We will publish further information on our website shortly if this applies to you.

If you have an activity statement lodgement deferral, you will still receive the cash flow boost – if you are eligible – at the time you lodge. This ensures that eligible entities that have received deferrals (e.g. due to recent natural disasters) still have the extended time to lodge and will not miss out on the cash flow boost.

For further information on the new measure, including timing and calculating the cash flow boost, visit Boosting cash flow for employers.”