Employer Eligibility
The first step required in order to assess eligibility is to ensure the employer has lodged their September 2019 BAS. Assuming this has been done, it will then be helpful to prepare and lodge the September 2020 BAS as soon as possible as this will be used to assess the employers eligibility for Jobkeeper. At this point, employers will then have a clearer picture as to whether they will qualify for the first phase of Jobkeeper 2.0 and can proceed as such.
GST Turnover
Calculating GST turnover for the purposes of the Jobkeeper 2.0 comparison is now restricted to either the cash or accruals method, as used in preparing the employing entities Business Activity Statement (BAS). Practically, this means that where there was some flexibility under the original Jobkeeper scheme to determine an entity's turnover, this has been removed for Jobkeeper 2.0.
Though an uncommon scenario, where employing entities have changed their GST accounting basis during the relevant period, they will need to follow specific rules set out bu the Tax Commissioner.
Employee Eligibility
The employee eligibility rules remain largely unchanged. Eligible employers will however, need to determine which employees qualify for the first tier of Jobkeeper payment ($1,200 per fortnight) and those that qualify for the second tier ($750 per fortnight).
Employees eligible for the first tier of payment will be those that worked an average of 20 hours or more per week in February 2020, whilst those that worked less than 20 hours will only qualify for the second tier of payment.
Please contact our office on 08 6380 7800 or info@elliottwebb.com.au if you would like to discuss any of the above in more detail with one of our consultants.
