MyGov, Australian Taxation Office and Single Touch Payroll

MyGov is a website which provides secure online access to government services, such as Australian Taxation Office (ATO), Centrelink, Medicare, Child Support, and My Health Record.

To setup a myGov account visit https://my.gov.au/, select Create an account on the homepage and follow the instructions on the screen.

Once you have a myGov account you can then link to the ATO by selecting the Services tab on your myGov home page and then selecting Australian Taxation Office.  You will need to provide the following information to identify your ATO record:

• your name
• your tax file number
• your date of birth

Next you will need to confirm your identity by answering two questions specific to you, using information contained in two of the following:

•  a notice of assessment received in the last five years
•  a PAYG payment summary received in the last two years
• a super account statement from the last five years
• a dividends statement from the last two years
• a Centrelink payment summary from the last two years, or
• your bank account details. If you choose to use your bank account to confirm your identity, it must be an account you had your individual income tax refund paid into last year, or one that has earned interest in the last two years.

When linking your myGov account to the ATO it will automatically select the default that all future ATO correspondence will be sent electronically to your myGov account, even if you have a tax agent.  You will be sent a text message and/or an email, depending on your profile settings, from your myGov account advising when it receives any correspondence from the ATO.

If you lodge your Income Tax Return through a tax agent, you will no longer receive your Notice of Assessment from ATO through your tax agent instead it will be sent directly to your myGov account.  Please make sure you that when you receive the text message and/or an email advising that there is mail waiting for you on your myGov Account to log in and check the correspondence as it may be a time sensitive matter.

Your myGov Inbox will keep your letters, statements and messages safe, secure and in the one place. You can get notices from:

•  Australian Taxation Office
•  Centrelink
• Child Support
• Department of Veterans’ Affairs
• Medicare
• National Disability Insurance Scheme

You will also be able to update your address and contact details in your myGov account which will then change those details on all your linked services, instead of having to contact each service individually.

If you have an ABN, you can also link this to your myGov account so that you can receive ATO correspondence in relation to your ABN through this service, such as activity statements.

The reason that the myGov account and linking with the ATO has become a hot topic of late is due to the ATO introduction of Single Touch Payroll (STP), which is the new way of employers electronically reporting payroll and superannuation information to the ATO.

Under STP, each time your employer pays you your wage, your year-to-date payroll and superannuation information will be updated in your myGov account, if you have it linked to the ATO service.  Please be aware that it may take a few days for your myGov information to be updated after your employer pays you.

At the end of the financial year, your employer will check all the data sent through to the ATO via STP system and then finalise the STP data.  Once your employer has completed this step then your payroll information will display as ‘Tax ready’ in ATO online via your myGov account.  This document is now called your income statement and replaces the PAYG Payment Summaries (or group certificates).  Your employer does not have to give you an end-of-year payment summary for the information they report through STP.

Currently not all employers are required to be reporting their payroll information through the STP system. If your employer has not commenced using STP reporting, you will continue to get a PAYG payment summary from them.

If you have any questions in relation to the Single Touch Payroll or accessing the ATO information, please contact our office on (08) 9316 7000.

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RBA Interest Rate Cut

At its meeting today, the Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia decided to lower the cash rate by 25 basis points to 1.00 per cent. This follows a similar reduction at the Board’s June meeting. This easing of monetary policy will support employment growth and provide greater confidence that inflation will be consistent with the medium-term target.

The outlook for the global economy remains reasonable. However, the uncertainty generated by the trade and technology disputes is affecting investment and means that the risks to the global economy are tilted to the downside. In most advanced economies, inflation remains subdued, unemployment rates are low and wages growth has picked up. The slowdown in global trade has contributed to slower growth in Asia. In China, the authorities have taken steps to support the economy, while continuing to address risks in the financial system.

Click on this link to read the full article.

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