Hi everyone,
Hopefully you are well and getting through these crazy times with so much uncertainty.
We’re doing our best to support you through this period, however, understandably, we are inundated with phone calls and emails with our businesses all wanting to know what they are entitled to, and what they need to do.
We will continue to do our best to support and help you throughout this challenging time, but do need to consider how to do this efficiently.
In the meantime, we thought it valuable to publish a Q&A to share our answers to the most common questions we’ve been receiving on the JobKeeper Payment, and the actions you should be taking right now.
The Government assistance packages have been changing almost daily over the past couple of weeks – and we are still waiting for the fine detail for the latest package.
Over the coming weeks, we will be getting in touch with our affected business clients to organise and schedule appointments for those interested.
During these appointments we will discuss:
- How the latest updates will impact your business
- How the government stimulus will impact lodgement of your March BAS.
- Cashflow planning to get you through the next few months.
- Tax strategy and planning
If you would like us to call you to organise an appointment with one of our business advisors / accountants, please reply to this email.
We will continue to keep ourselves as informed and up-to-date as possible, so we can relay the most important information to you.
But for now, here’s a quick Q & A on JobKeeper Payments that you can read through.
Before calling us, we ask that you review this document to see whether your question has already been answered.
All the best & much appreciated.
The JobKeeper Payment
1) What is the JobKeeper Payment?
- It is a subsidy paid through the tax system to eligible employers (and self-employed individuals) impacted by the Coronavirus
- The subsidy is $1,500 per fortnight, per eligible employee from the 30/03/2020 for a maximum of 6 months.
- Payments are commencing from the first week of May 2020 and will be paid monthly in arrears
2) When is an employer or business eligible for the JobKeeper Payment?
Eligible businesses are:
- those with a turnover of less than $1 billion, where the turnover is reduced by more than 30% relative to a comparable period a year ago (of at least one month)
3) When can the JobKeeper Payment be claimed in respect of an employee?
The Jobkeeper payment can be claimed when the following requirements are met:
- The employee is currently employed or was employed on the 1st March 2020 by the employer.
- The employee is full-time, part-time, or a long-term casual.
- A long-term casual is an employee working on a regular basis for longer than 12 months.
- The employee is at least 16 years old
- The employee is an Australia citizen or permanent resident
4) Can the JobKeeper payments be received from multiple employers?
- No, the employee is only entitled to one JobKeeper payment.
- Employees with multiple employers will need to notify their primary employer to claim the JobKeeper Payment
5) How can I register for this payment if I’m deemed eligible?
If you believe you are eligible for these payments you can register via the following link:
Once the legislation is released and we have further details, we will be in contact with more info.
What Should Be Done Now?
Right now, there are only a few things you need to be actioning.
These include:
- Speaking to your banks about obtaining further finance (e.g. lines of credit, government guaranteed loans, business/personal loan deferrals) if likely to be needed
- Getting your accounting books and records up-to-date
- Register for the Jobkeeper payment if you believe you are eligible
Having your accounting records up to date as soon as possible, allows us to start working on your March 2020 Business Activity Statement which will be critical during this time.
For those who lodge their own BAS, we STRONGLY recommend that you get us to review it prior to lodging, especially for this quarter.
This is because the benefits that you receive from the government will be strongly linked to the information in your March BAS.
All the best and we’ll be in contact again soon.
