As the impacts of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) become increasingly felt across Australia and globally, our main objectives now are to support you and your business in any possible way to navigate this uncharted turmoil. This resource centre will be a continual source of updates and information to help you prepare and respond to issues you may face.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is encouraging businesses impacted by the coronavirus to get in touch with the ATO to discuss relief options.

Options available to assist businesses impacted by COVID-19 include:

• Potential to defer some payments and vary instalments that will be due, such as income tax, business activity statement (including PAYG instalments), FBT and excise payments by up to four months.
• Allow businesses on a quarterly reporting cycle to opt into monthly GST reporting in order to get quicker access to GST refunds they may be entitled to. You can only change from the start of a quarter, so a change now will take effect from 1 April 2020.
• Allowing businesses to vary Pay As You Go (PAYG) instalment amounts to zero for the March 2020 quarter. Businesses that vary their PAYG instalment to zero can also claim a refund for any instalments made for the September 2019 and December 2019 quarters.
• Remitting interest and penalties applied to tax liabilities incurred after 23 January 2020.
• Working with businesses affected to help them pay their existing and ongoing tax liabilities by allowing them to enter a low interest payment plan.

Employers still need to meet super guarantee obligations for their employees. By law, we can’t vary the contribution due date or waive the super guarantee charge where super guarantee payments late or unpaid.

These relief options will not be automatically applied, you or your accountant will need to discuss your business impacts due to the COVID-19 situation with the ATO to get the relief.

Anyone impacted by COVID-19 is advised to contact us as soon as possible so we can assist in any way possible including negotiating with the ATO.

The Queensland Government have announced two main support grants for eligible business with additional ‘top up’ grants based on payroll size:

• Business Support Grant – employed staff
• Business Support Grant – non-employing sole traders

Business Support Grant – Staff Employed Businesses
The QLD 2021 COVID-19 Business Support Grant provides grants of up to $5,000 for businesses impacted by the lockdowns plus a ‘top-up’ grant based on the size of your payroll (see ‘Top up’ grants package below) bringing the total value of the grant to between $10,000 and a maximum of $30,000.

Business Support Grant – Non-Employing Sole Traders
The Queensland and Federal Governments have announced a one-off, $1,000 grant for non-employing sole traders across Queensland that have had a decline in turnover of more than 30% commencing 31 July 2021 or the Cairns and Yarrabah lockdown commencing 8 August 2021. No further details are available at present with applications to be opened soon.

Following the release of details concerning the Federal government JobKeeper 2.0 package, we now have further clarity over the eligibility and application process.

The JobKeeper 2.0 payment has been established to continue assisting businesses impacted by the Coronavirus as a subsidy from the Government to continue paying their employees. Under extension period one, affected employers will be able to claim a fortnightly payment of $1,200 or $750 per eligible employee (based on hours worked within the fortnight) from 28 September 2020, for a maximum period of 3 months.

For full details of eligibility requirements please see the following checklist which apply each of the tests as well as a walkthrough of the enrolment and application process.

What is JobMaker?

JobMaker is a credit available to eligible businesses for hiring additional employees (not if you are merely replacing someone who left). The hiring credit is available for jobs created from 7 October 2020 until 6 October 2021 and provides:

• $200 per week for new employees between 16 to 29 years of age, and
• $100 a week for new employees between 30 to 35 years of age.

Payment is from the start date of the employee for 12 months.

Administered by the ATO, JobMaker is a credit that is paid quarterly in arrears from the start date of the employee for 12 months, assuming the business and employee remains eligible (see JobMaker Eligibility in the below guide).

The credit is an incentive for the employer to support wage costs and is not passed onto the employee.
Unlike JobKeeper, JobMaker can apply to new businesses and the business does not need to satisfy a decline in turnover test to receive payments.

Following the release of details concerning the Federal government JobKeeper package we now have further clarity over the eligibility and application process.

The JobKeeper payment has been established to assist businesses impacted by the COVID-19 as a subsidy from the Government to continue paying their employees. Affected employers will be able to claim a fortnightly payment of $1,500 per eligible employee from 30 March 2020, for a maximum period of 6 months.

Broadly, to be eligible as an employer you will need to have been carrying on a business as at 1 March 2020 and have since seen a downturn in GST turnover of at least 30%. For employees to be eligible they will need to have been permanently employed or a long term casual at 1 March 2020.

To help you in managing potential risks of transmission and communicating important messages with your employees and customers, we have developed resources, which you are free to download and use within your business.