JobKeeper 2.0 - Updated Rules

With the pressure building on our government to help businesses find their way out of the current economic challenges, the changes to the JobKeeper 2.0 are needed to keep supporting small business in the coming months. Here are the updated new rules for small businesses (with annual sales under $1 billion) to qualify:

JobKeeper 2.0 Phase 1: 28 Sep 2020 - 3 Jan 2021:

Sales Eligibility:

To continue in the JobKeeper scheme for the December quarter, your business must prove ONLY:

  1. Actual GST Turnover for the September 2020 quarter must be at least 30% less than its GST turnover for the September 2019 quarter.

Payment rates: The $1500 per fortnight pays will be reduced!

Payment rates will be reduced for those who will be eligible for Phase 1 (28 Sep 2020 to 3 Jan 2021). There will be 2 types of rates for employees:

a) Full rate: will be paid to employees who were working in the business for 20 hours or more a week on average in the month of February 2020 (1/2/2020 to 1/3/2020). The payment will reduce from $1500 to $1200 a fortnight.

b) Reduced rate: will be paid to employees who were working in the business less than 20 hours a week on average in the month of February 2020 (1/2/2020 to 1/3/2020). The payment will reduce from $1500 to $750 a fortnight.

JobKeeper 2.0 Phase 2: 4 Jan 2021 - 28 Mar 2021

Sales Eligibility:

To continue into the JobKeeper 2.0 scheme, your business needs to be eligible for phase 2 of JobKeeper 2.0. Eligibility test needs to be done again to move forward to March quarter:

  1. Actual GST turnover for the December 2020 quarter must be at least 30% less than its GST turnover for the December 2019 quarter.

Payment rates Phase 2 (4 Jan 2021 - 28 Mar 2021) - the pays will be reduced again!

Payment rates will be reduced for those who will be eligible for Phase 2 (4 Jan 2021 to 28 March 2021). There will be 2 types of rates for employees:

a) Full rate: will be paid to employees who were working in the business for 20 hours or more a week on average in the month of February 2020 (1/2/2020 to 1/3/2020). The payment will reduce to $1000 a fortnight.

b) Reduced rate: will be paid to employees who were working in the business less than 20 hours a week on average in the month of February 2020 (1/2/2020 to 1/3/2020). The payment will reduce $650 a fortnight.

Eligible Employees - Add more on JobKeeper

The employee eligibility test date will now move from 1 March 2020 to 1 July 2020. This means that if you hired new employees after 1 March 2020 and you could not add them on JobKeeper 1.0, you can now claim for their JobKeeper 2.0 payments. You will need to get them to complete and sign an employee nomination form to get the JobKeeper 2.0 - which will start from 28 September 2020 on the condition that your business qualifies for JobKeeper 2.0 based on the sales eligibility test above.

What you need to do now:

  1. Check if your business employed new employees since 1 March 2020 and before 1 July 2020 and get them to complete a new employee nomination form.

  2. Compare your business turnover for September 2020 quarter with September 2019 quarter to check if your business sales have reduced by 30% or more

  3. Go through your employees list and draw up a list of the employees who were working 20 hours or more a week and employees working less than 20 hours a week in the month of February 2020. The working hours will determine the rate they will be paid moving forward from 28 September 2020.

We’re here to help:

We will do the sales eligibility test for your business for the September quarter at the end of September and will let you know if your business turnover reduced by at least 30%. Those who pass the sale eligibility test, will continue on from 28 September 2020 to 3 January 2021

We will do this test again beginning of January 2021 to ascertain if the December quarter sales would have reduced by at least 30% (compared with December 2019 quarter) so you can continue getting the JobKeeper payments from 4 January 2021 to 28 March 2021.

“PLAN AHEAD” WEBINAR

We know how hard business has been the past 6 months. Despite the doom and gloom, there is light at the end of this tunnel. Our grandparents survived the 1930’s world economic depression and the horrors of WWII, dispossession and persecution. We are lucky to be living in the lucky country and we are grateful for the support of our government because the government is US and we should not forget that.

Take the opportunity of this “downtime” to plan for the future of your business post Covid 19. We will be running a free webinar in the coming weeks to help our business clients plan ahead. We will send our business clients whom we are providing the JobKeeper service a private invitation to our “plan ahead” webinar in the coming week.

Money Intelligence team is here to support you.

Susan Wahhab