Zeroing Out STP Data

There are circumstances where it may be necessary to zero out any STP data that has been reported by a pay company during a financial year. For example, if a pay company has been reporting under the wrong ABN/ABN branch number and therefore all reported year-to-date (YTD) amounts must be transferred to another ABN/ABN branch number, the amounts reported under the original ABN/ABN branch number must be zeroed out.

Caution must be taken when zeroing out STP data because it will result in the MyGov income statements of all payees linked to the corresponding pay company reporting zero year-to-date earnings and tax withheld.

If you do zero out the STP data for a pay company unintentionally during a financial year, you can process balancing payments adjustment batches that include the affected payees, without making any payments to those payees in the batch, and then submit the STP report for those batches. That will reinstate the previously reported year-to-date amounts. Otherwise, if you have unintentionally zeroed out after you have already submitted the EOFY STP batch for a financial year, simply resubmitting the EOFY STP batch for the relevant financial year will reinstate the amounts that were reported prior to the zeroing out.

After you have completed the zeroing out you must make any of the necessary corrections or adjustments prior to submitting any further STP data to the ATO. For example, if the ABN or ABN branch that was recorded against the pay company was incorrect, make sure the ABN/ABN branch is corrected before continuing to submit any STP reporting to the ATO.

Otherwise, the previously zeroed out data could be reinstated as it had been reported previously.