NSW Small Business Recovery Grant & STP Finalisation

NSW Small Business Recovery Grant & STP Finalisation

2 July 2020

Small Business Recovery Grant

The $3,000 Small Business Recovery Grant is now open for applications. This grant helps small businesses meet the costs of safely reopening or up-scaling operations Please refer the link below for more details and to apply

https://www.service.nsw.gov.au/transaction/apply-small-business-covid-19-recovery-grant#eligibility

To be eligible for this grant, you must as at 1 March 2020:

• be a small business or a not-for-profit organisation based in NSW

• have an ABN registered in NSW (make sure all your business details are up to date on the Australian Business Register - this is used to determine eligibility)

• have an annual turnover of more than $75,000 (a Business Activity Statement must be provided as evidence). Where a small business does not submit a BAS to the Australian Tax Office, and meets all other criteria, the small business should contact Service NSW to discuss further. In these cases, an income tax declaration may be accepted as evidence of an annual turnover of $75,000.

• employ less than 20 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff (non-employing businesses can apply)

• be able to report a payroll below the NSW 2019-2020 payroll tax threshold of $900,000

• be in a highly impacted industry by the Public Health (COVID-19 Restrictions on Gathering and Movement) Order 2020

• have experienced at least 30% decline in turnover from March to July 2020 compared to the equivalent period (of at least 2 weeks) in 2019

• have costs associated with safely reopening or up-scaling your business from 1 July 2020.

Note: If you have received a COVID-19 small business support grant of up to $10,000, you may also be eligible to apply for the $3000 COVID-19 small business recovery grant.

Single Touch Payroll Finalisation

This is the first year many employers report payroll data via Single Touch Payroll (STP). Historically employers issue PAYG summaries and lodge them with ATO after completing year end payroll processing and reconciliation.

Going forward the new process called ‘STP Finalisation’ needs to be completed in your payroll Software. The process needs to be completed by 14th July (for Micro employer 31st July). However, it is preferable to do this asap so that employee have the necessary info to do their tax return if they wish. The process includes important steps to review and reconcile the payroll data for the financial year and to include information such as reportable fringe benefits. Importantly employees will no longer receive a PAYG summary rather they can view their income statement on Mygov or via their tax agents.

We enclosed some useful links regarding STP finalisation

ATO : https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Single-Touch-Payroll/In-detail/Single-Touch-Payroll-employer-reporting-guidelines/?page=7

MYOB https://help.myob.com/wiki/display/ar/End+of+year+finalisation+with+Single+Touch+Payroll+reporting#expand-TofinaliseSingleTouchPayrollinformation

XERO : https://central.xero.com/s/article/Finalise-Single-Touch-Payroll-data

Important: Clients should not act solely on the basis of the material contained in this newsletter. Items herein are general comments only and do not constitute or convey advice per se. Also changes in legislation may occur quickly. We therefore recommend that our formal advice be sought before acting in any of the areas. Client Alert is issued as a helpful guide to clients and for their private information. Therefore it should be regarded as confidential and not be made available to any person without our prior approval.