Note: For clients who are using our Tax Agent services to lodge your STP reporting during 2020-21 financial year, we will be responsible for making this finalisation declaration to the ATO on your behalf.
You need to make a finalisation declaration for the 2020-21 financial year:
- Employers who have 20 or more employees should be reporting finalisation declaration for closely held payees by 30 September each year.
- For small employers (19 or fewer employees) who only have closely held payees, the due date for end-of-year STP finalisation will be the payee’s income tax return due date.
- For all other employees, employers need to make a finalisation declaration by 14 July each year.
If you do not finalise by this date, you should do this as soon as possible to ensure your employees can access their information to complete their income tax return.
- How to get ready for end-of-year reporting
Before making your finalisation declaration, make sure your STP information is correct.
If you can’t make a finalisation declaration by the due date, you will need to apply for a deferral.
- Amendments after finalisation
If you need to amend details after making a finalisation declaration, you should submit these as soon as possible. You can do this by submitting an update event. The ATO will make updated information available to your employee through ATO Online. They also recommend that you notify your employee of the any changes to their finalised income statement.
- What your employees will see
STP allows your employees to view their payment information at any time in our online services through myGov.
On 1 July, they will see the status of this information change from ‘year-to-date’ to ‘not tax ready’. It will stay like that until you submit your finalisation declaration.
When you have made the finalisation declaration, your employees will see the status of their payment information change to ‘tax ready’.
Some employees like to lodge their tax returns early in July and may choose to do so before you have finalised their STP information. We will make it clear to them that their income statement is not ‘tax ready’. If they choose to use the un-finalised information, they will need to acknowledge that:
- you may finalise their income statement with different amounts
- they may need to amend their tax return and pay additional tax.
Should you require any assistance with this, as always, we are here to help!
