Are your employer clients prepared for Single Touch Payroll? STP is a government initiative to streamline business reporting obligations, which is due to become compulsory from 1 July 2018. When an employer pays their employees, the payroll information will be sent to the ATO from their payroll solution.
Reporting under the new system removes the requirement to issue payment summaries, provide annual reports and tax file number declarations to the ATO. During the first year of its introduction, the ATO says employers will not be liable for a penalty for a late STP report.
Important points to keep in mind for the transition to Single Touch Payroll (STP) include:
Employers who report an employee’s details through Single Touch Payroll will not have to provide that employee with a payment summary at the end of financial year. They won’t be required to provide the ATO with a payment summary annual report for those employee’s details also.
Employers will need to notify the ATO when the payment summary data is considered final. The ATO will make that information available to employees and their tax professionals through myGov, and as pre-filled information in their tax return.