TFN Declaration

Hi, just recently set up a new employee.

Previously there was a check box to submit the declaration through STP. That checkbox has disappeared.

Is the form still submitted with the first lodgement of STP for the new employee? Or do i have to manually send in a form?

Thank you!

Comments

Rav

Hi Chet

TFN declarations for an employee are now a standardised inclusion of STP Phase 2 submissions which is why the checkbox has been removed in the 2023 edition.

Just ensure that you have entered their TFN correctly and it will be included in the STP Phase 2 submission you create in Reckon Accounts Hosted 2023.

Chet

Great!

Thank you Rav for confirming this!

John Graetz

Hi Rav. I note your comments regarding the removal of the tick box for reporting of tfn declarations. You stated above that declarations are now part of STP2 submissions. But what about changes to tfn declarations? One of my employees requested that her declaration change to include a request that the tax free threshold now be claimed. I changed her Hosted Record and recorded the date of the change. I have now discovered, from the employee who logged into her MyGov account, that her record still reports the date of the original tfn declaration and states that she is not claiming the tax free threshold. This appears to mean that any changes that we make in the employee record are not reporting in the next STP submission. Are you able to provide some clarification please Rav?

John L G

NEILR

Hi @John Graetz

As part of STP v2 there is now a Tax Treatment Code sent with each Employee in each PayEvent, this code is an abbreviated way to inform the ATO around the employees Tax situation.

This Tax Treatment code has replaced the lodgment of the actual TFN Dec.

I've included a link to an ATO page, towards the bottom of this page is a bit more information on the Tax Treatment code.

Have you processed and successfully lodged a PayEvent since making the changes to the Employees record?

If you open GovConnect and click on the Employee's Details under that latest PayEvent, you should be able to see the Tax Treatment code assigned to them.

Assuming they are a normal 'Salary & Wages' employee, Character 2 will either be T (for Tax free threshold claimed) or N (no tax free threshold). So for this employee you should see an N as the second character eg RNXXXX.

If the Tax Treatment code is appearing correctly in GovConnect, it should also update the details on the ATO side. If it hasn't, either the employer or employee would most likely have to get in touch with the ATO to try to figure out why.

https://www.ato.gov.au/businesses-and-organisations/hiring-and-paying-your-workers/single-touch-payroll/in-detail/single-touch-payroll-phase-2-employer-reporting-guidelines/how-to-report-employment-and-tax-information-through-stp-phase-2

John Graetz

Thanks for your additional information Neil, which has helped me with further investigations. I can now report as follows:

1. I have looked at the STP2 submissions and can see that when I changed the tax code to claim the tax free threshold, it correctly reported this in my STP submission.

2 Before the last pay run on Friday, I changed the selection to change back to not claiming the tax free threshold. An examination of the STP file lodgement, correctly shows the change in tax code as you have detailed.

The point now is that despite me going through the above step 1, changing the information in Reckon, correctly submitting that information to STP, that change has not flowed on to the ATO portal. That certainly indicates to me that the no tick box procedure for a change in tax selection is not actually working the way that it should. If it was, then the ATO portal should be updating. So whilst it isn't working for changes, does that mean that it is not working for new employees either? I have no way of knowing without signing up a new employee.

I add that in this specific case, the change requested by the employee was made on an archived ATO blank tax declaration form, which in reality is no different to filling out a paper form obtain directly from the ATO. The ATO website states that we do not have to send such forms to the ATO if we have STP2 enabled software. Reckon does have that software and I know that it is reporting correctly to STP but failing to find its way to the ATO. One obvious way to overcome this is to have the employee log into their own MyGov account and initiate the change there and print off the resultant form and give it to the employer. But unfortunately, that does not change the fact that what is supposed to happen is not happening because the ATO Portal is not updating the way that you say it should. I have screen shot evidence from the employee that the ATO Portal did not update the previous change reported via STP.

I would also add that technically, it may not matter that the ATO Portal has the correct tax option showing, as long as Reckon is doing what it should, which in this case it is. The real point revolves around whether stated information is fact or fiction, and in this case, it appears to be fiction.

I will try and contact the ATO and see what they have to say - that ought to be interesting!

John L G

Acctd4

Hi @John Graetz

The extent of info within the STP section of the ATO portal is incomplete & inaccurate. It’s yet to be fully developed & is therefore not a reliable source of STP activity 😩 The only thing it’s good for is confirming a submission has actually been made so I never look at that section.

The breakdown shown in your Reckon STP portal Detail is what actually flows through to the ATO & employees’ myGov accounts - As long as this is reflecting as it should, you can be confident it’s going through correctly ☺️

Note: Depending who you speak to at the ATO, it’s highly likely they probably won’t have a clue about any of this as it’s not an active section for training so - along with the on hold time - you’ll probably just be wasting your time trying to get advice on it from them 🙄🤦🏻‍♀️

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