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The ATO is expected to announce a deferral regime for the mandatory expansion of Single Touch Payroll, with the 1 January 2022 deadline not expected to be a “cold, hard cut-off”, says one industry body.
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‘Don’t cancel your Christmas holidays for STP Phase 2’
17 March 2021
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Mandatory STP Phase 2 reporting is now set to commence from 1 January 2022, with employers soon required to report additional payroll information to the ATO, building on basic salaries and wages information reported through the original STP regime that first began in 2018.
The additional payroll information will be subsequently shared with Services Australia in a bid to reduce employers’ reporting obligations to multiple government agencies.
While software providers are currently working with the ATO to update their systems, the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers executive director Matthew Addison has assured practitioners that transitional arrangements will be introduced in the build-up to the 1 January 2022 deadline.
“What I’m hearing from the ATO is a really good approach of going, ‘We’re talking to the software companies, we’ll get their implementation date and we’re going to allow all their clients X number of months after the launch date’,” Mr Addison said on Accountants Daily Insider.
“That’s really good because that means we don’t have to go and apply for every one of our clients to get a deferral with an implementation time frame.
“It’s Christmas, it’s January; the world shuts down for January, but it’s not a cold, hard cut-off [date].”
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Incoming guidance
Mr Addison notes that practitioners can soon expect to receive initial guidance from the ATO, including details of additional payroll information that will be required of employers.
“[The] ATO will be releasing shortly — and I’m led to believe that’s within the next 30 days — their first set of material for an employer to think about in advance of embracing STP 2,” Mr Addison said on Accountants Daily Insider.
“And within six months, they will bring out the employer onboarding guide — the detail for an employer.
“So, 1 January 2022 is a date to focus on, we need communication, we need information from the ATO, wait for the software companies to ride on the back of that and give out their plans, their programs, their time frames.”
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