Single Touch Payroll reporting (STP) is an Australian Government initiative that streamlines the reporting of tax and superannuation information to the ATO. STP reporting requires a payroll report to be sent to the ATO detailing the payroll information (employees’ tax withheld, salary and wage) and super liabilities every time your employees are paid.
This requirement has been in place for a couple of years now and causes much confusion to set up. As you need to link your payroll program’s ID with the ATO. Once this has been set up you need to remember to lodge each issued pay slip to the ATO within 24 hours of issuing to your employee. Whilst initially this may feel like one more thing to do, the advantage of STP is the information sent is prefills on your quarterly activity statement and it makes the end of your finalisation reporting a simple process.
For families with nannies and other domestic staff, this only applies if you have an ABN. Until 1 July 2033, employers with a WPN are exempt.
When STP applies as an employer, this means you:
- report payroll information to ATO each time you pay your employees
- report super liability information to ATO
- won’t need to give your employees a payment summary for the information you’ve already reported and finalised through STP.
Further reading on STP and how to change over can be found at the ATO.
A full list of affordable STP-enabled software options are available from the ATO.
All Domestic Payroll Services include managing STP for the Gold Services and assisting with STP set up for the Bronze and Silver Services.
