ATO STP 11/08/2020

I am on the line with the ATO now, to get some advice on how to fix an error with my STP reporting for my company. Being put on the wait again on the main line for 20mins after the 2nd person I spoke to went away for "2mins".

STP stands for Single Touch Payroll, and is a new system that was rolled out from FY2019. While the concept is great, it has had significant teething issues that resulted in headaches for employees come tax time. 2019, being the first year, had a lot of taxpayers who wanted to lodge their returns soon after the 1st of July, unable to do so. Some for months to come. The severity of the problem has decreased in FY2020.

I have a very small business entity with two irregular employees, and found a solution from Reckon that came as an app, to do the STP reporting and finalising for the year. This was a free version and seemed to be sufficient for my job. Reckon also has other paid versions which became evident when I logged on to their portal - using the same ID as for the app - on my computer. Now, both these systems had their unique "software ID" - understandably unique to the user - allocated to me, which I had to register with the ATO before I could use them to do reporting. I did register both of them in one call yesterday, as it seemed I can have more than one system registered concurrently.

I sat down with a coffee and managed to do a pay run on my phone and submit it. There was a small issue though - so I thought (the part that it was small!). I had a Lump Sum E amount for one of the employees, but the app did not provide a category for Lump Sums. It was just Gross, Tax withheld, Allowances, and Super payments. So I included everything in the Gross assuming there will be a more comprehensive list when the EOFY finalisation is done. But I was wrong. Soon after did I find out that the app was meant for just the most basic of reports - not of great use given that the application is a long term commitment and any employer can at some point need to include a RFBA, RESC, or Lump Sum.

Anyway, now I needed to correct this. The lodgments done on the app are not amendable and irrevocable. It seems Reckon One (paid version) caters to Lump Sums, so I activated the trial version and tried to see how I can fix this. It turns out that even though I can do new reports on the new software, I can't use it to fix anything done on the app.

Enter the call to ATO.

27:30 Adree

35:40 on hold

50:00 came back

55:15 abruptly put on hold "for 2-3mins!" Put back on the general wait.

1:28:20 Niteesh

Ref  1051737795766

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