G'day @KarlaS 👋
STP moved reporting of employee income from annual to each pay, therefore it is best practice to have regular communication with employees to ensure that they keep their identity data in sync between ATO Online, employer systems and super funds.
Employers or payroll managers cannot confirm payee identity details on their behalf, as they are not the owner of the data: the employees are. Employees are generally only permitted to update their TFN, residential address, personal email address and personal mobile phone number in employer systems. Other payee identity data, such as full legal name and date of birth may require substantiation from authorised documents.
It is more relevant than ever to confirm payee identity for digital government services, such as STP2 and SuperStream, particularly given the upcoming Payday Super. For example:
- STP2 - the payee identity data sent to the ATO is compared against taxpayer identity data and, if it matches, the ATO publish the data as an Income Statement. If the data doesn't match, the taxpayer may not see their current Income Statement or any amendments you make.
- SuperStream - the super funds confirm payee data sent against the ATO taxpayer identity and, if the response from the ATO is unmatched, they either have to try to track down a member or reject the contribution
- Payday Super - the same as for SuperStream, but the super funds will have 3 business days to match or reject the contribution and employers will have 4 business days left since payday to obtain the correct information from their employee and resend data/payment to try to meet the original 7 day deadline, or they may receive a super guarantee charge from the ATO
Yes, it's more relevant than ever 🤓
Deanne