For those of you who are employers, Tuesday 28^th July is the end date for satisfying your SGC super obligation for the June 2015 quarter.  Late payments will attract substantial interest and penalties which effectively doubles or triples the cost.  Even if your cash flow is tight, this commitment should be paid before anything else.

The final day for payments and reporting of Victorian Pay-roll Tax is Tuesday 21^st July.

For those who lodge a quarterly BAS or IAS, your June quarter activity statement is due to be lodged by Tuesday 28^th July (but 25^th August for activity statements if you have registered your business as a user of the Taxpayer Portal and are not paying only fixed $ instalments).

Please note that lodgement of an activity statement (even if it is nil statement) and payment are two separate requirements.  Late lodgement attracts a minimum non-deductible fine of $170 for every 28 days that a form is lodged late whereas as late payment results in an interest levy (which is often remitted).  A fine is not tax deductible, interest is.  Not that we encourage it, but should you not be able to pay an activity statement in full, do not defer lodgement as the possible fines are significant.  The ATO will of course in time identify that an activity statement liability has not been paid and follow it up; but by this time though the liability should be paid in full anyway and at worst, incur a deductible interest charge far less than any non-lodgement penalty.

I remind you that under the Director Penalty Regime which came into effect in July 2012, PAYG Withholding (WH) and SGC super which remains unreported and unpaid after 3 months now results in the unpaid amounts becoming a personal liability of any directors.  Placing a company into liquidation doesn’t avoid or extinguish this liability.  For further information, please refer to our September 2012 Tips and Traps newsletter.

WorkCover finally saw sense a few years ago and now issue staggered lodgement dates for the annual Certificate of Rateable Remuneration.  This Certificate advises WorkCover of the exact remuneration for the prior year which triggers a reconciliation process against premiums paid during the 2014/15 year.  The Certificate also serves to advise the expected remuneration for the forthcoming 2015/16 year.  Non-lodgement may result in an excess assessment as their default assessment may increase remuneration by some 20%.  Employers with a March 2016 lodgement date who expect to have lower remuneration in 2015/16 will need to lodge their 2015 Certificate before the end of August to ensure that are not levied an excessive premium in 2015/16.  Please contact us should you have any queries or require assistance.

The government had previously scheduled the introduction of the Single Touch Payroll (STP) reporting for all employers on an progressive basis from July 2016 (with all employers required to adhere to electronic notification by July 2018).  They have deferred the first introduction date of July 2016 as they now (finally) understand that businesses are largely unprepared for such a system and the associated costs.  Under this system, each payment to each employee will be reported to the ATO at the time of payment (including super thereon).  We had been developing  package to our clients who would have been unable or not willing to attend to this real time reporting but will now defer any further action until we have a concrete start date.