Title: / Single Touch Payroll Working Group meeting
Venue:
date of meeting: / Teleconference
Date: Friday 7 August 2015
Time: 10.00am to 11.00am (AEST)
Chair: / Michael Gleeson (ATO) / Facilitator: / Michael Gleeson
Contact: / Kate French / Contact Phone: / 02 4923 1134
0439 422 952
next Meeting: / Teleconference 14 August 2015
KEY MESSAGES
· Michael Gleeson acknowledged comments he made two weeks ago around detailed requirements were a bit premature.
· What we are hoping to share very soon is certainty around policy on STP and what would the reporting obligations for employers look like.
· ATO needs a wide view on what are payroll elements – what are the data elements
· Key areas for co-design – level of certainty, plan of options and timing, the scope of a pilot, an iterative and agile process.
· Treasury discussions need to reflect timeframes – reporting information – align the pilot – other work going on across the ATO and the whole of government.
· Respond to the group formally with plans and co-design design discussions.
· Looking at a technical workshop – closing the loop around some of the feedback and taking previously provided feedback into consideration.
· There was robust discussion around the retail onboarding screen shots, especially around the terminology used by the ATO.
ACTION ITEMS to be added to and updated
ID / Action item / Status Update /Open items
1 / Provide a roadmap of known items of change for the ATO to include future potential STP scope, SuperStream milestones, changes to myGov/ATO Online etc. / In progress. Seeking latest pack developed for Board of Taxation
2 / Advise who is liable where there is a fraudulent log on to myGov and e.g. Super Choice nomination is made to an SMSF. / In progress.
Pending advice – update expected in week of 27 July.
5 / Advise the legal position on what action is required where data goes to the wrong employer. / In progress. Exploring process requirements to deal with situations where data is sent to and accepted by the incorrect employer.
6 / Raise software developer community view with Treasury that greater value can be provided to businesses with a change in secrecy provisions. E.g. it would provide greater value if, in wholesale onboarding, employee relationship with a particular superfund could be validated. / In progress. View to change secrecy provisions have been raised with Treasury. Awaiting feedback.
7 / Raise software developer community view of benefit of broadening use of myGov credential with DTO. / In progress. Discussions have commenced within the ATO to consider the user experience and security.
9 / Work through issues associated with RFBA and bring options back to working group. / In progress. Current view is that an additional service will be required to allow reporting of RFBA amounts outside of a normal payroll event.
10 / Define what constitutes the need to report to the ATO and advise working group. Is it a withholding event? Would Super contribution only be reported? What if there is salary sacrifice amount that impacts taxable income? / In progress. The ATO aims to realise an enhancement to Australian payroll accounting systems. New technologies exist to support frequent direct reporting and tax transparency between the ATO and the employer community. The STP program intends to establish a B2G reporting requirement surrounding the following liabilities:
1 – Employee PAYGW liability derived from the salary payments made by an entity to their staff
2 – ATO Super have defined a requirement to have also have both Super entitlement information reported to the ATO on event basis.
3 – ATO Super further intends to collect confirmation of Super payments from employers, driven by the actual payment event to a super fund. The correlation between items 2 and 3 will support ATO Super to define a policy around the implementation of SGC.
4 – Further payroll items that cannot be deemed frequently by event basis like RFBA and associated Salary Sacrifice calculations have been drawn out from the proposed STP payroll event.
5 - A purpose built independent service “STP Payment Summary Update” Event will need to be developed to ensure the capture of payroll related information that falls out of the norm.
14 / Amendments Workshop. Consider the legalities around the condition of professional employee monthly payments. Where an employee receives a monthly payment classified either in arrears or in advance and the payroll report is then provided at a later, will this condition be supported by STP? / In progress. Pending advice.
15 / Amendments Workshop. Explain ATO decision not to display collected super data into ATO Online for employees. What are the reasons and impacts for this motion? / Completed. The decision not to introduce STP collected super data into ATO Online for employees was supported through the consideration that, the ATO could not be deemed as the custodian for SG data. This becomes particularly important where the reported values are in error, as the source of the data is not the fund but the employer. A complete view of what super payments made by the employer, actually reaching a correct fund destination cannot be intervened by STP.
Additionally, any confirmation of a lack of SG payments made by an employer to an employee over ATO Online would be considered a disclosure of an employer’s legal SG liability. The following project decision was also recorded in support of this motion.
16 / Amendments Workshop. Clarification on the definition of how a Salary Sacrificed amount is treated, with respect to gross employee payments and payroll reporting. / As per ATO advice on completing payment summary reporting and avoiding common errors:
Do not include amounts paid under a salary sacrifice arrangement at Gross payments. / Amounts that are paid to a super fund under a salary sacrifice arrangement must be reported at Reportable employer superannuation contributions.
Any other amounts paid under a salary sacrifice arrangement may need to be reported at Reportable fringe benefits amount; otherwise, they should not be reported on the payment summary.
Further legislation and ATO Public Rulings can be source from the ATO website.
Completed items
3 / Advise the electronic record keeping requirements for TFN Dec. / Completed. Depends on law change and what status the ATO Online on-boarding form takes. If it replaces ‘a TFN declaration given to a payer’, then a payer should not need to keep a record of it as they won’t ever have been given a TFN declaration to retain.
Otherwise, the existing law applies and a payer must retain the declaration until the second 1 July after the day on which the declaration ceases to have effect.
4 / Advise whether there is any possible situation where data changed by employer will update ATO-held data – formal response based on law required. / Completed. The current design does not support any situation where the updating of employee-related data by an employer in their BMS updates ATO-held information about that employee e.g. changing their address/name etc.
8 / Check whether specifics of offset details are currently on variation forms / Completed. NAT 3092 Tax file number declaration and NAT 3093 Withholding declaration reviewed for specific offset variation labels. 11 new elements were extrapolated and included into the STP on-boarding taxonomy to include upward, downward and seniors pensioners variation offsets.
11 / Arrange meeting with software providers who allow amendments to payroll events e.g. where it is possible to reverse/delete. Participants to be identified by ABSIA. / Completed. Scheduled for 9 July 2015. Outcomes currently being documented.
12 / Find out how many amended payment summaries the ATO receives each year. / Completed. In 2014 there were 268,245 payment summaries amended by payers – representing ~2%
13 / Explore options for services that can be provided to enable employers to reconcile ATO. / Completed. Functionality to enable employers to reconcile information held by the ATO with that in their software is currently being designed.
CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED