AM I ELIGIBLE FOR JOB-KEEPER?

To be eligible for JobKeeper the business needs to establish that it has been affected by Covid-19. Depending on the size of your business if your turnover is less than $1Billion turnover you need to demonstrate that your turnover has fallen by 30% or more. For large businesses its 50%.

To establish that your business turnover has fallen by more than 30% (or 50%), the Tax Turnover will look at a variety of things. Most businesses would be expected to establish that their turnover has fallen in the relevant month or three months depending on your BAS reporting obligations and compare this to the relative turnover a prior year.

The Commissioner will have discretion to consider additional information that the business can provide to establish that you have been adversely affected by the impact of Covid-19.

This would apply if for example

• Where your business was newly established and was not in operation a year earlier, or

• where your turnover a year earlier was not representative of your usual or average turnover due to the acquisition or merger of a business

• Your business turnover is typically highly variable eg builder etc

In these circumstances the Tax Commissioner will also have discretion to set out alternative tests that would establish eligibility in specific circumstances for example eligibility may be established as soon as;

• a business ceases or

• significantly curtails its operations.

The Tax Commissioner has expressed that here will be some tolerance where employers act in good faith and are slightly out in the estimation of the threshold level and the business actually experience a slightly smaller fall.

The JobKeeper Payment also applies to any eligible self-employed person to receive a wage subsidy regardless of what business structure they use, where:

• the partners in a partnership only receive a share of profits – one partner can be nominated to receive it 

• directors of a company only receive dividends – one direct can be nominated to receive it 

• beneficiaries of a trust only receive distributions – one individual beneficiary (i.e. not a corporate beneficiary) can be nominated to receive it

Please contact a member of the team at DISAVIA CONSULTING to help you navigate through the initiatives.