The latest from the ATO on the next phase of STP

QSuper recently hosted Ian Colhoun – a Director in the ATO’s STP project – at our Brisbane office to talk to employers about the impact of STP implementation and the requirement for small business to come on board from 1 July 2019. He also gave an insight into the next phase of reporting enhancements for businesses.

“We understand the move to real-time digital reporting (STP) may be a big change for employers, especially small employers, so the ATO will help and support employers through this change,” Ian Colhoun said.

According to the ATO, more than 25,000 small businesses are already reporting their STP data.

“Businesses with fewer than 20 employees need to comply with new STP requirements from 1 July 2019, however those that come on line before 30 September 2019 will be considered to have commenced reporting at the right time. For some though, even this flexible timeframe might still be a challenge,” Mr Colhoun said

“We will be generous in granting deferrals to small employers who need more time to start STP reporting. We want to help to get it right,” said Mr Colhoun.

QSuper is your partner in STP

When QSuper is nominated as your default employer super fund, you can use our Employer Direct portal for your STP reporting at no cost. For non-default employers, our low-cost solution offers a simple fee structure and a quote can be arranged upon request.

Before STP, payroll processes were year-end processes, which meant the ATO would only see a once a year report.

“STP now gives us visibility of data as it happens, which allows us to provide feedback to employers more quickly,” said Mr Colhoun.

“Now we can have that real-time data, we can support the employers or the individual employees by prompting them if we see that something is going wrong – like underpayment – and we can do something about it now, rather than waiting for the end of financial year when someone then has a tax bill.”

Other ATO enhancements for businesses

According to Mr Colhoun, making things simpler for employers is the ATO’s driving force for change. Along with the STP benefits, new processes have been introduced to make it easier for businesses when they bring on new employees – called 'Employee Commencement'.

Mr Colhoun spoke with employers about how they could use Employee Commencement to make the onboarding process for new employees easier.

“Hiring new employees used to mean a lot of paper handling. Tax file number declarations had to be filled in manually by every new employee, then entered manually by the employer to notify the ATO. It left a lot of room for errors,” Mr Colhoun said.

Employee Commencement is available now

“This new solution is designed to streamline the process and reduce inefficiencies, improve data capture and quality, and support choice of super fund,” he said.

Employers can take advantage of Employee Commencement now by giving a new employee their ABN and directing them to the ATO website to fill out their Tax File Number Declaration online with pre-filled data from the ATO, which is then sent back to the employer.

“We recognise that there are clear opportunities to support businesses and to support employees starting in new jobs. The opportunity is there to help people get their data right, to get the right outcome – that’s the clear objective. It’s all about the benefit to employers,” said Mr Colhoun.

Ian Colhoun’s views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the QSuper Board. This information is general information only, and you should get professional advice before relying on this information.