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Single Touch Payroll helps your employees

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January 7, 2021

ATO
www.ato.gov.au

 

1 December 2020

If you report through Single Touch Payroll (STP) and have employees who receive Centrelink payments, your business information will appear in their Centrelink online account.

They will see:

  • your organisation’s name

  • your Australian business number (ABN)

This is a result of our STP data-sharing arrangement with Services Australia to assist their administration of the welfare system.

It means people who are on an income support payment and are required to report their employment income fortnightly to Centrelink will have their employer details prefilled for them.

The changes will make it easier for your employees to report their employment income.

If you’re already using STP, you don’t need to do anything to make this change.

If you’re yet to begin reporting through STP, find out how to get started.

Single Touch Payroll

Single Touch Payroll (STP), is an Australian Government initiative to reduce reporting burdens across government agencies.

With STP, you report employees’ payroll information to us each time you pay them through STP-enabled software. Payroll information includes:

  • salaries and wages

  • pay as you go (PAYG) withholding

  • super.

STP started on 1 July 2018 for employers with 20 or more employees and 1 July 2019 for employers with 19 or fewer employees.

If you haven’t started reporting through STP, you need to start reporting as soon as possible.

We have provided a number of concessions depending on the business, industry, or employer type. These will largely end as of 1 July 2021 and you will need to be reporting each pay day through STP by this date.

Next steps

Expanding data collected from STP

In the 2019–20 BudgetExternal Link it was announced that we would expand the data collected through STP to streamline a range of government reporting obligations.

Employers will report additional payroll information each pay day. The mandatory start date will be advised soon.

There is nothing you need to do now. We are working closely with digital service providers who are updating their STP-enabled software.

More information on what you need to do and when will be provided early 2021.

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