The minister for Small Business, Bruce Billson, and the Assistant Treasurer, Josh Fydenberg have announced that the Government are planning to work with accounting software companies to ensure that the software will automatically report payroll information to the ATO as soon as employees are paid.
It will be imperative for the Government to consider the business process issues that may arise for small business operators when reporting happens automatically, before systematic validation and review is completed to ensure the accuracy of the reported data. In many cases, employers process their own payroll payments or have an employee to do so and expert professionals such as BAS and Tax Agents check over the data prior to reporting of payroll related liabilities to the ATO or Superannuation funds.
It is also possible that this sort of reporting may cause business owners to be wary of cloud accounting solutions that would make the “single touch” reporting possible. This could mean further obstacles for business confidence in cloud technology in their business, which would be a step backwards for business processing generally.
See the full media release here: