What is STP or Single Touch Payroll?

What is Single Touch Payroll?

Single Touch Payroll (STP) makes payroll reporting far easier for employers. Instead of juggling a raft of paperwork, your boss reports payroll details including super payments, to the Australian Tax Office (ATO) on or before each pay day. New payroll software now looks after that. Each time your pay is processed, the software sends your pay and superannuation contributions directly to the ATO.

If your workplace has 20 or more staff, your employer should have started using Single Touch Payroll by July 2018. For fewer than 20 employees, STP kicked off from 1 July 2019.

Income Statements Replace Your PAYG

The biggest change that you’ll notice with STP is that your employer doesn’t have to provide you with a PAYG summary or Group Certificate at the end of the year. What was a PAYG is now an “Income Statement” but it is not a document they will necessarily give to you.

The good news is, it doesn’t matter in terms of your tax return. You don’t need a summary to do your taxes. Etax (and any tax agent) will find the summary on your ATO file and add it to your return automatically.

With STP, some employers might also stop giving you regular pay slips. Instead, STP lets you access details of your pay and tax paid at any time via the myGov portal.

Is STP good for unpaid super?

With STP, it’s easy to check if your employer is up to date with your super contributions. That’s a good thing. Employers who don’t pay superannuation cost an estimated one in three Australian workers about $2,000 each year.

What about your tax return?

As we mentioned earlier, you don’t need a physical Income Statement Etax has that totally covered!

• Etax accesses all the info needed for your tax return from your ATO file
• You don’t have to find an income statement and you don’t have to use myGov to access your records.
• As you start to fill in your Etax tax return, your data should populate automatically.

If you need a hand, your Etax accountant is available directly to answer any questions, via live chat, private messaging or by phone on: 1300 693 829.