FastTrack360 Version 12 Online Help
Pay Australia > Payee - Ability to flag a payee subject to Seniors/Pensioners Tax Offset (v12.17)
- Fiona Sims
- Max Ciereszko
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 that have the Seniors & Pensioners Tax Offset option applied via the Payroll > Payee > Search > Payroll Details screen. When the option in the Tax Scale field is set to Tax Scale 2 or Tax Scale 5 or Tax Scale 6, an SAPTO search filter option is enabled as shown in the example below.
Benefits
If a payee is subject to SAPTO and their tax withholding is being manually adjusted to account for the offset, this enhancement allows the relevant tax treatment to be reported to the ATO via STP Phase 2 to inform why the tax withholding is lower than what it otherwise would be.
Click here for more information about reporting tax treatment codes in STP Phase 2.
Configuration
On upgrade to V12.17, the Seniors & Pensioners Tax Offset option is available and can be enabled in the PAYG Tax Details section of the Payroll > Payee > Payee Entry screen if the payee’s tax scale is set to Tax Scale 2, 5 or 6.
To be subject to SAPTO, a payee must be an Australian resident, must provide a TFN and must be claiming the tax-free threshold. Therefore, Seniors & Pensioners Tax Offset option is available only if the tax scale that is selected is Tax Scale 2, 5 or 6.
On enabling the Seniors & Pensioners Tax Offset option, the secondary field Status is enabled, and it is mandatory to select the SAPTO status that applies to the payee (i.e. single, part of a couple, part of an illness separate couple), which identifies the extent of the tax offset that is being applied to the payee.
Because the Seniors & Pensioners Tax Offset option does not automatically affect tax calculation in FastTrack360, it is possible to toggle the Seniors & Pensioners Tax Offset option on or off without adding a new validity period to the Payee record.
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Classification-Public