Hiring employees over the festive season

As the festive season approaches, you may be thinking of hiring new employees to help with your business to help with the influx of trade and tourists. Here are some key things to remember when it comes to your tax and super obligations.

Withhold the right amount of tax

As an employer, you’ll need to make sure you’re withholding the right amount of tax from payments you make to your employees and other payees. This helps them to meet their end-of-year tax liabilities. Particularly important if this is their second job to ensure they’re not left out of pocket at tax time. Your accounting or payroll software, the ATO’s tax tables or our their tax withheld calculator will help you do this.

Pay the Super Guarantee (SG)

You must pay SG to all eligible employees’ super funds in full and on time to avoid paying the super guarantee charge. The next SG payment is due on 28th of January 2025. The ATO’s  Super guarantee contributions calculator can help you work out how much SG you need to pay. You can also use the SG checklist to make sure you’re meeting your SG obligations.

Report through Single Touch Payroll (STP)

If you’re still not reporting through STP and don’t have an approved exemption, deferral or concession in place, you should start reporting now. If you’ve just started a business or recently employed staff, you’ll need to report through STP from your first payday. Remember, if you report through STP you don’t need to send us your employee’s completed TFN declaration. We’ve already received this information through your STP reporting. You’ll still need to keep this information for your own records.

If you have any questions or queries relating to business, tax or super obligations don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.