A business’s payroll is one of the most complex parts of its admin duties. Unfortunately, it also comes with lots of Government scrutiny and the importance of getting “all your ducks in a row” at the end of the financial year cannot be understated. We are seeing the ATO, State Revenue Office, and Workcover all triggering audits where the data submitted to them does not match what the others have on file… and lets not even mention late superannuation payments.
You can view our full range of EOFY 2024 articles below
EOY PAYROLL REQUIREMENTS
Employers have the obligation to perform certain actions at the end of a financial year to comply with the Law. The most obvious is the requirement to produce group certificates for employees (which is now known as a STP finalisation).
It’s not just a matter of pushing the “finalise” button at the end of the year, as you need to ensure that the payroll figures you are submitting are accurate for 2 main reasons:
- The ultimate tax refund or payable of your employees relies on this being correct; and
- Providing incorrect figures to the ATO leaves you open to an ATO audit.
On that second point, the ATO get a huge amount of data from many sources, and its not difficult for them to cross-check that to work out if the payroll figures you send them at year end is accurate or not. If it’s not accurate, the ATO may commence an audit of your payroll.
You may feel that a payroll audit isn’t that scary, especially if you have a small payroll (and therefore the error can’t be that large) – however we find that once the ATO starts looking in one place, it doesn’t take much for them to expand that audit and look at other things. As honest and dilligent as you may be, do you want to deal with the ATO looking at everything you have done for the past 2 years?
Get it right the first time and avoid the hassle.
SUPERANNUATION PAYMENTS
If you only remember one thing from our EOFY articles, remember this…
Pay your superannuation on time
The ATO knows when your superannuation is due (now that every pay slip is sent to the ATO when you pay staff), and they know when you pay it (because it all goes through a clearing house that reports to the Government), so the ATO knows who is and who isn’t paying their superannuation late. We are seeing ATO audits based on this data, and its only going to get more frequent.
Beg, borrow, steal… it doesn’t matter how you pay it, just find a way to pay it by the due date. The last thing you want is an ATO audit.
OUR EOY PAYROLL CHECKLIST
We have a comprehensive checklist that covers everything you need to look at to ensure that your payroll is accurate and correctly submitted to the ATO. We also cover some of the other obligations business have that require payroll figures – such as payroll tax and workcover.
Best of all… it’s 100% free!! Just download from the link below.
