An accountant is giving up her time to help business owners make sense of the government's suite of stimulus packages, which have left many employers scratching their heads.
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Parul Banga decided to put her number-crunching expertise to good use by giving some free advice to businesses who have been suffering from the coronavirus shutdown.
"I've been an accountant for 25 years, so I thought this is probably the best way I can serve the community at this time," Mrs Banga said.
"A lot of people have been calling me up and asking me about all the various packages and who's eligible; there's a lot of confusion and rumours going around," Mrs Banga said.
In a bid to combat the confusion and translate government technobabble into plain English, Mrs Banga has written up several print-out guides on the new cash flow boosts and JobKeeper packages.
Her biggest piece of advice to businesses is to stay on top of bookkeeping, which is an often-neglected step that makes it difficult for employers to prove their eligibility for JobKeeper.
Another piece of advice is for business owners to talk to the banks to arrange a deferment of mortgages, especially for those who have stopped trading entirely.
Her last piece of advice is for people to watch out for themselves, their employees, and their community during this time of hardship.
"At this point in time it's really depressing for everyone, so I think it's very important for everyone to stick together as a community," Mrs Banga said.
"Even though we are social distancing we are all going through this together."
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Here is Mrs Banga's most commonly asked questions about the government's JobKeeper subsidy.
Q. Which is an affected business and is eligible for the subsidy?
A. If your turnover is less than 1 billion dollars and has fallen by more than 30 percent since last year for the March BAS period, your business is eligible. The ATO will compare your March BAS for 2019 with the March BAS for 2020.
If your turnover is more than 1 billion dollars and has fallen by more than 50 percent since last year for the March BAS period, your business is eligible
Q. What should I do to access these payments?
. Apply to the ATO and provide supporting information demonstrating a downturn in business.
. Elect to participate in the scheme.
. Provide the ATO the number of eligible employees employed by your business on a monthly basis. They will also use the single touch payroll information to check the information provided by you.
Q. How much will my business receive?
A. $1500 per eligible employee will be paid. This will have to be paid to the concerned employee.
Q. Who is an eligible employee?
A. A full time employee, a part time employee, casual employee and stood down employees who were on the books on 30 March. The casual employees should have been employed by the business for at least 12 months. Employees that were re-engaged by the businesses that was their employer on 1 March 2020 will also be eligible.
Q. I am a sole trader and don't have any employees. Will I be able access the payment?
A. Yes, provided you can demonstrate that your turnover fell by 30%.
Q. My employees were paid less than $1500 a fortnight during their regular employment. Do I have to pay them $1500?
A. Yes. The minimum amount that is to be paid under job keeper payment is $1500. This is the gross amount.
If your employee was paid more than $1500 a fortnight, you can make additional payments to them. However, that is voluntary.
If you wish you can make voluntary payment of super in addition to the job keeper payment.
Q. When will the ATO reimburse the Job keeper's payment to the employers?
A. The payment will be made to the employer monthly in arrears by the ATO. The employers will get the first payments from the first week of May 2020.
Please click on the link below for registering for job keeper updates on ATO website.