Description
Payees who are 66 years or older at the end of a financial year may be eligible for a seniors and pensioners tax offset (SAPTO) for that financial year. That is, such payees may be eligible to a reduced rate of tax withholding, where the extent of the reduction is dependent on whether the payee is:
single
part of a couple
part of an illness separated couple.
If a payee is eligible for SAPTO and their tax withholding is being reduced accordingly, it is a requirement under STP Phase 2 to report a tax treatment code that identifies that the payee is subject to SAPTO and which of the three abovementioned categories apply to the payee.
To cater for this, a new option labelled Seniors & Pensioners Tax Offset has been added to the PAYG Tax Details section of the Payroll > Payee > Payee Entry screen, as shown in the example below.
When the Seniors & Pensioners Tax Offset option is ticked, a secondary field labelled Status is enabled and it becomes mandatory to select an option from the field to indicate if the payee is single, part of a couple or part of an illness separated couple.
The Seniors & Pensioners Tax Offset option is only available if the payee’s tax scale is one of the following:
Tax Scale 2
Tax Scale 5
Tax Scale 6.
Flagging a payee as being subject to SAPTO allows FastTrack360 to automatically report the relevant tax treatment code to the ATO via STP reporting to indicate that the payee is subject to SAPTO.
However, it is important to note that FastTrack360 will not calculate and apply the relevant tax offset to the payee’s tax withholding automatically when tax is calculated at the Tax pay batch stage. Therefore, the Seniors & Pensioners Tax Offset option should only be enabled if tax is being manually adjusted at the Tax pay batch stage to apply the relevant tax offset.
We have also provided additional search options to allow you to find payees who have the ‘Seniors & Pensioners Tax Offset' setting applied, via the Search Payee > Payroll Details Tab, Tax Details section.
The ‘SAPTO’ filter is editable within the Tax Details section of Search Payee if Payee’s Tax Type criterion has been set to Any or PAYG. You can apply filters of:
Any (default)
Yes
No
Benefits
This enhancement adds the ability to identify payees who are eligible for the Seniors & Pensioners Tax Offset so that the relevant tax treatment can be reported to the ATO via STP reporting if a payee’s tax withholding is being adjusted to apply the offset.
Configuration
On upgrade to V12.17 the ‘Seniors & Pensioners Tax Offset' setting is available in Payee Record for PAYG Payees, in the PAYG Tax No section. By default, this item is not ticked and these settings can be updated at any time in the existing payee. Where ticked the Status value must be applied to one of the following options:
Single
Couple
Illness Separated Couple
The SAPTO values can be edited even where the Payee’s corresponding validity period has been included in a pay batch.
Where set this information will be included in the STP information reported to the ATO for reporting purposes.