Late on Friday afternoon Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced changes to the JobKeeper program. These changes sought to address the questions raised by Accounting groups and to close a loophole where full-time high school students were eligible for the $1,500 a fortnight jobkeeper payment even if they were receiving less than $100 a week from their weekend casual job.
"The rules will provide that full time students who are 17 years old and younger, and who are not financially independent, are not eligible for the JobKeeper payment"If businesses have already made payments for April should not be concerned as this clarification will apply prospectively, which would mean an eligible employer that has already met the wage condition of paying such an employee $1,500 for a fortnight could be entitled to a JobKeeper Payment in arrears for that fortnight.
TURNOVER TEST FOR EMPLOYMENT ENTITIES
The other changes announced by Mr Frydenberg related to the situation where business trading activities operated in a entity separate to the entity that employed the staff, a service trust arrangement. In order to protect the integrity and efficient operation of JobKeeper, a separate fall in turnover test would be created for firms that use a special purpose entity to employ their staff rather than being directly employed.
The new test will include combined GST turnovers of the companies that use the entity which employs a firm's staff.
ENROLMENT TIME EXTENDED
Please also note the Commissioner has extended the time to enrol for the initial JobKeeper periods from 30 April 2020 until 31 May 2020.
If you enrol by 31 May, you will still be able to claim for the fortnights in April and May provided you meet all the eligibility requirements for each of those fortnights. This includes having paid your employees by the appropriate date for each fortnight
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