02 Jun Payment summaries and STP this tax time – taxpayers may need a myGov account
While it is being reported that many businesses are not ready for Single Touch Payroll (STP), one report suggests that 70% of small and medium-sized entities (SMEs) are not ready, the employees of businesses that are operating STP face some changes.
As a result of the introduction of STP, taxpayers may need a myGov account in order to get the payment summary details they need to complete their 2019 tax returns. How taxpayers receive their payment summary or income statement from their employer depends on how their employer reports their income, tax and super information to the ATO.
Employers need to let employees know if they won’t be giving them a payment summary this year.
Employees with more than one employer may receive both a payment summary and an income statement. In that situation, employees will need to check that income from their payment summaries is included in their tax return.
TIP
This major change for 2019 will see many taxpayers needing to set up a myGov account and link it to the ATO. This is not necessarily a straightforward process. If taxpayers have a myGov account already linked to other services such as Centrelink or Medicare, adding the ATO can be problematic. For example, the name on each account must match exactly – the ATO is likely to have a taxpayer’s full name whereas a Centrelink account may only have first and last name. This may prevent the ATO from being added to a taxpayer’s myGov account. The situation can be rectified but may require a trip to a Centrelink office.