Phase 2 coming soon

The ATO is expanding the information that businesses send through Single Touch Payroll (STP). From 1 January 2022, most employers will be required to send additional information such as the commencement date of employment and cessation date of employment for employees, their reasons for leaving employment and work type. The basic information about salary and wages and super liability information in Phase 1 of the STP rollout will also be further drilled down in Phase 2, moving away from just reporting the gross amounts.

According to the ATO, the Phase 2 report will also include a six-character tax treatment code for each employee. The code will be automatically generated by the STP software and is an abbreviated way of outlining the factors that can influence amounts withheld from payments.

STP was originally introduced in 2016 as a way for employers to report their employees’ tax and super information to the ATO in real time. Most employers, regardless of the number of their employees, were required to start reporting from 1 July 2021.

Employers with a withholding payer number (WPN) have until 1 July 2022 to start reporting payments through STP, and small employers that make payments to closely held payees are exempt from reporting these payees through STP for the 2019–2020 and 2020–2021 financial years.

While the Phase 2 increase in information will be automatically taken care of in most STP software solutions, the increased stratification of reporting may require you to pay more attention to your business’s payroll, to ensure all the information you enter into the system is correct.