One-off grants of $17,500 to small and medium businesses
Small and medium businesses whose annual Australian Taxable Wages are between $1 million and $4 million will receive a one-off grant of $17,500 to assist them to manage the impacts of COVID-19.
No applications are required. Grants will automatically be paid from July 2020, but there may be delays for taxpayers whose tax status changed during the 2018-19 assessment period or who commenced as new employers in 2018-19 and 2019-20.
It is expected 6200 WA businesses will benefit from the grant.
Waiver of 2019-20 payroll tax available to small and medium sized businesses
Payroll tax will be waived for a four-month period between March 1, 2020 to June 30, 2020 for small-to-medium sized businesses with Australia-wide annual wages of less than $7.5 million in 2019-20.
This will deliver around $165 million in relief to around 10,700 businesses that will not be required to pay payroll tax for this period.
Employers, or groups of employers, with Australian taxable wages below $5 million at 29 February 2020, do not have to apply for the waiver – the payroll tax waiver can automatically be claimed for March to June 2020 by:
- declaring WA taxable wages as normal in Revenue Online; and
- recording the value of WA taxable wages as exempt wages using the ‘Other Exempt Wages’ field.
Employers, or groups of employers, with Australian taxable wages of $5 million or above (capped at $7.5 million) at 29 February 2020, or new employers registered for payroll tax from 1 March 2020, can apply to defer lodgement and payment of returns.
The Treasurer encourages eligible businesses not negatively affected by COVID-19 to keep paying tax as normal so the funds allocated to this initiative can be used to assist other businesses that are not so fortunate.
If your business needs any assistance with the above information please feel free to contact us.
The above information was sourced from the WA Department of Finance website.
