The ATO’s letter to business owners: are you ready for the End of Financial Year?

If you’re a small business operator, you may have received a letter from the ATO in recent days – a letter suggesting there are changes coming to the way you handle your tax obligations.

If you’re a business registered for PAYG withholding, then you’ve probably received the letter, too. It’s a similar letter to the one the Tax Office sends out every year.

Basically, it’s giving you this message: July 1 is coming, and you need to be ready.

Every new financial year, payment obligations change. Even though there may not be any new legislation or huge shifts in the way businesses collect tax, there are still changes to payment rates.

This will affect how you do business and pay your employees. From a basic perspective, there are a couple of things you need to have ready for the upcoming financial year:

1. New payment rates

Every year, the government introduces new tax tables. These are crucial to ensuring you’re paying employees correctly and are withholding the right amount of tax.

Do you have the latest tax tables? It’s important to remember that when you close off your financial year, you need to make sure the last payroll run of the financial year is made using the right tax tables. Then, download the new tax tables and use them for the first run of the 2015-16 year.

2. SuperStream obligations

The government has introduced new laws regarding the execution and reporting of superannuation payments. Under new SuperStream regulations, businesses will have to track and then report data on all their superannuation contributions to employees.

This is a huge change, but it’s going to make things a lot easier for businesses. Especially if you have to provide reports and payments for a number of different superannuation accounts.

3. Payment summaries

Just as you need to send through your payment summaries to employees by July 14, you also need to send these through to the ATO.

It’s important to note that although new payment arrangements happen every year, they don’t have to be a headache.

In fact, one of the easiest ways to make sure that you’re compliant with new payment arrangements is to have it all handled from within your accounting software.

For instance, MYOB makes it easy for you to comply with ATO requirements in the new financial year through our compliance updates. Our payroll update is sent in time for the first payroll run of the new financial year.

Our update includes new tax rates, and the ability to pay super contributions that are compliant with the new SuperStream standard. To download your compliance update – which features the latest tax tables as well as our SuperStream compliant solutions – head to our upgrade page here. Just have your email or serial number ready!

Why not see if there’s an online accounting solution right for your business?