In July, the government announced an extension to the JobKeeper payments for businesses who are still being affected by COVID-19 and further announced updates on employee eligibility this month.
JOBKEEPER 2.0 – What You Need To Know
In July, the government announced an extension to the JobKeeper payments for businesses who are still being affected by COVID-19. The government further announced updates on employee eligibility for JobKeeper 2.0 this month.
Extended JobKeeper Details
The current JobKeeper payments are set to finish on the fortnight ending 27 September 2020.
In order to qualify for the extended JobKeeper payments, you’ll need to be re-assessed to prove your continued downturn in revenue.
This means actual turnover for the September 2020 quarter per your BAS needs to show the 30% drop in revenue compared with the same quarter last year.
If you qualify under these new guidelines, then you will be eligible to receive the payments for the December 2020 quarter.
Come January 2021, you’ll then need to confirm that you’ve met the decline in turnover test for December 2020 quarter to continue to receive payments up to 31 March 2021.
This is aimed at assisting those businesses who are continuing to suffer due to the social distancing restrictions and the change in economic climate of Australia from COVID-19.
The payment amounts will also change:
|
JobKeeper Period(s) |
Fortnightly Minimum Payment for Employees who work over 20hrs per week on average |
Fortnightly Minimum payment for employees under 20 hours per week on average |
|
28/09/2020 – 03/01/2021 |
$1,200 |
$750 |
|
04/01/2021 – 28/03/2021 |
$1,000 |
$650 |
The reason the ATO have split the payments now over two employee groups is to try and better reflect a reimbursement of the employee’s normal income levels. The first JobKeeper payment was paid as a blanket figure for all employees as a means of fast tracking financial assistance to employees during this pandemic.
In the first JobKeeper system, a long term casual employee who only normally works 8 hours a week is currently being topped up to the minimum of $1,500 per fortnight. This new updated system will better reflect the individual employee’s normal ordinary earnings.
More information surrounding this extended JobKeeper payment can be found on the ATO’s website here, or on the Treasury’s fact sheet is also available here.
In the next month, we will be emailing around another engagement document surrounding the second batch of JobKeeper eligibility assessments. If you’d like to receive this update, please contact us using the link below or call our office on 02 46011000 and request to be included on our mailing list.
