Imminent Changes to Personal Leave Entitlements for Employees

A recent Federal Court decision is likely to have significant impacts on employee entitlements with respect to personal leave for employees. Employees, full-time and part-time, are entitled to 10 days of personal leave per year of service. The definition of “10 days” has now been reviewed in the recent court case.

Baby Budgets

Starting a family is an exciting time for any couple. There is also a level of uncertainty about how you will adapt to the change and afford the additional costs that go with having little footsteps in your home. Research from the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM) suggest that it takes over $406,000 to raise a single child from birth to the end of their education. That is a lot but, you can prepare yourself. We’ve prepared a number of tips that we think might be helpful to your growing family.

Privacy in the News

In today’s climate, we are being bombarded with messages about surveillance on a global scale with social media loopholes; Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, even photo editing apps.

What Is a TPAR?

It is that time again, Taxable Payments Annual Reports (TPARs) are due for lodgement with the ATO on 28th August.

The Start of a New Year

It’s July, and a new financial year is dawning – so what a perfect time to get out ahead with a budget.

Cash Is King

Cash is the lifeblood of business. Even profitable businesses can fail when cash flow monitoring does not occur. Cash is needed for investing in growing and for working capital. Without enough money to pay lenders or suppliers, banks may foreclose, and suppliers could cut supplies and businesses quickly die.

Tax Cuts: What Will They Mean For You?

Millions of Australians will be receiving between $255 and $1080 in tax cuts for the 2018-2019 Financial Year as part of the Coalition’s income tax plan that passed parliament last week. This is phase one of tax reduction plans that will be implemented over coming years.

STP and Publishing Payment Summaries in Xero

Many of our clients have registered for Single Touch Payroll (STP) through their Xero platforms so that they were ready to go from 1 July 2019. We’ve received several frequently asked questions on how this transition impacts on the preparation and lodgement of PAYG payment summaries for the 2019 financial year just ended.

Here they are:

Q: Can I still prepare PAYG payment summaries for 2019 in the old/classic way even though I have registered for STP?

A: No; once you’re STP registered, lodgement of your 2019 PAYG payment summaries is done through following the STP process. The option to lodge through the old method is deactivated. As such, you can only preview your payment summaries, but not publish them.

Q: If an employee asks me for a copy of their 2019 PAYG payment summary, can I provide them with one?

A: Yes; payment summaries can still be generated from Xero and downloaded as a pdf. These can then be emailed to the respective employee.

Q: How long does STP lodgement of 2019 PAYG payment summary data take to be finalised?

A: Finalisation can take up to 72 hours to file with the ATO. Given that this is a new process with the ATO and there is a high volume of submissions, the actual timeframe might be a bit longer.

As always, if you have any questions, please get in touch with your bookkeeper or manager.

Angeline recently covered some basics regarding Single Touch Payroll via Webinar, which you can view here: