Small employers (19 or fewer employees) with closely held payees were exempt from reporting payroll information of those closely held payees through the STP for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 financial years. However, from 1 July 2021, those small employers must start reporting payments made to closely held payees through STP.

 

Closely held payees consists of individuals that are directly related to the entity from which they receive payments including family members in a family business, directors or shareholders of a company, and beneficiaries of a trust.

If you’re an employer with only closely held payees, you will just need to start reporting through STP from 1 July 2021, there is no need to notify the ATO of the fact that you only have closely held payees. Although,

To help those small businesses with only closely held payees transition to STP, the ATO has outlined a few options available from 1 July 2021 below:

  • report payments on or before the date of payment.
  • report payments quarterly; or

 

Generally, the STP quarterly report for your payees will include year-to-date amounts, ordinary time earnings (OTE), super liability for each payee, total gross wages for payments being reported, and total PAYG withholding payments being reported.

If you choose to report quarterly, the report will be due on or before the due date for quarterly activity statements, and the quarterly option will not change the due dates for notifying and paying your PAYG withholding on your activity statement or making super guarantee contributions for your closely held payees.