Hiya @Banjo2022 đ
There are two main regulators for payroll: the Fair Work Ombudsman (for employment) and the ATO (for income). As per the link I provided for the FWO, payslips are a report based upon the Fair Work Regulations.
Your employer reports your income to the ATO each pay via Single Touch Payroll, that they publish as your Income Statement.
It all depends on how your employer mapped your payments in payroll to the category of income on the STP pay event for the ATO. What your employer may show you as "taxable income" and "gross income" isn't relevant. The only relevance is your Income Statement. There may be differences between what payroll call it to calculate tax and what the legal category of income is for the ATO. For example, salary sacrifice amounts; cents per km allowances.
Employers are required to map reportable income to the ATO via STP. The "taxable gross" is the sum of the reported "disaggregated gross" less the salary sacrifice amounts.
Have a look at your Income Statement for the Payment Types reported. If you have salary sacrifice amounts, were they reported? Is that what you mean by "deductions"? Sometimes employers get the mapping wrong and, if they do, it may mean that you "owe" tax because the salary sacrifice amount isn't reported as it should be. Could that be it?
The ATO has the excellent STP2 Employer Guidance to assist employers to get it right, perhaps they could cross-check their mapping with that?
It's a typical oversight that may explain the discrepancy you see in your tax return.đ
Deanne
Thanks so much for your response Deanne. Very helpful.
The mapping issue sounds like what may have happened. Although my employer is a large employer and handles salary sacrifice arrangements for 100s of employees within the organisation - that and the fact they say theyâve checked the reporting and are adamant itâs correct makes me wonder if itâs an issue I need to raise with the ATO instead?
The Income Statement has an amount under âOther Leaveâ but the amount doesnât add up to the salary sacrifice value. Itâs difficult for me to know if there is an error on the face of the Income Statement because I donât know how it should properly appear.
@Murphy2022, the ATO publish the STP pay event the employer sends them. As-is, without manipulation. Paid Leave Other is annual leave, LSL, personal leave etc. Ask your employer to explain your income statement amounts compared to the paycodes on your payslip. Deanne
@py_deanne
Ok, will do. Thanks Deanne
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