{"id":2975,"date":"2020-05-01T10:34:15","date_gmt":"2020-05-01T01:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oreon.com.au\/?p=2975"},"modified":"2020-05-01T10:37:31","modified_gmt":"2020-05-01T01:07:31","slug":"your-business-and-the-jobkeeper-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oreon.com.au\/accounting\/your-business-and-the-jobkeeper-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"Your business and the JobKeeper scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ATO has been charged with running the JobKeeper Payment scheme, which is intended to support businesses that are financially affected by COVID-19 to help keep their staff employed.<\/p>\n

Employers will be required to pay their eligible employees a minimum of $1,500 a fortnight, before tax, to claim the JobKeeper payment. This is then paid in arrears back to the employer each month by the ATO.<\/p>\n

Note that if a staff member had been earning more than this amount before tax, the business will need to make up the rest as the employer will still only get the $1,500. If they earned less, the employer will still be required to pay them $1,500. There is no \u201ckeep the difference\u201d option in these cases, and not paying the full $1,500 cancels a business\u2019s eligibility.<\/p>\n

Payments are made each fortnight, with the first fortnight period (30 March to 12 April) already having passed. The run of fortnights is intended (at present) to end at 27 September. There is no need to adjust any payroll periods already adopted, but the JobKeeper reimbursements will follow this fortnightly schedule.<\/p>\n

Entitlement to JobKeeper reimbursements will usually pivot on a business\u2019s payroll, but the ATO says the first two fortnights can be deemed as already compliant as long as staff had been paid the required amounts by 8 May.<\/p>\n

All JobKeeper payments are assessable income of a business, and the normal rules on deductibility apply on their payment to eligible employees.The payments are not subject to GST. Super guarantee obligations apply to previous income levels, but there is no SG on additional payments resulting from the scheme.<\/p>\n

Eligibility<\/h3>\n

The central measure on gaining access to the JobKeeper payments is a fall in turnover. A business with an aggregated turnover of $1 billion or less will qualify if facing a 30% fall in turnover (the trigger is 50% for greater aggregated turnover businesses and 15% for registered charities).<\/p>\n

If an employer wants to be involved with JobKeeper payments for the months of April and May 2020 (just by way of example), the fall in turnover is found by comparing either:<\/p>\n