With the introduction of Single Touch Payroll (STP) during the 2020 financial year, end of year payroll finalisation has changed.

Employers no longer submit PAYG payment summaries to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) or provide these to employees. Now, employers must undertake an STP finalisation process.

STP finalisation notifies the ATO that all wages for the financial year have been paid and confirms gross wages, tax withheld and superannuation paid for each employee. The ATO makes this information available to employees through myGov or the tax agent portal.

Most accounting software has STP finalisation processing. Employers doing this check that all pays are recorded and that the amounts to be reported to the ATO match the amounts actually paid to employees.

The ATO has advised that employers with 20 or more employees had until 14 July 2020 to finalise their STP and employers with 19 employees or less have until 31 July 2020. Late finalisation may be subject to penalties, so it is important that this is done on time.

PKF can help if your accounting software does not provide STP finalisation; if no software is used to process wages; or if more time to complete the finalisation is needed.