Job Keeper and Tax Cuts

With good accounting it is too easy to manipulate cash flow to artificially suppress monthly revenue and gain Jobkeeper.

I'm not in the business of dibber dobbing but I can express my disappointment on here. I don't actually blame them, I blame the system and they say a similar thing. If it can be done than why not.

 

That's a good point that some people forget.
As far as I recall the initial payments had to be made to employees before eligibility was confirmed so there was a risk to employers that isint always appreciated (and I'm a unionist at heart)

 

I'm putting it out there for a few others to see, that's better than doing nothing. At least it's better than just excepting that it was a rushed policy and it doesn't matter where the money goes.

 

Anybody that reads it. Most people know its going on around the place. Im getting people complaining to me about jobkeeper just about everyday at work and socially.
Not sure what others will do it about,thats up to them.

 

The people complaining about it simply dont understand it, nor want to.

This thread has been going in circles with people trying to explain it, but if ones mind is already made up based on personal observations and uninformed opinions then nothing will change that.

 

No one will need to worry about it soon as it must eventually end... Is it March 2021

 

Whether ScoMo or Frydenberg like it or not, there is a case to retain Jobkeeper in its present format within Victoria at least - particularly for employees of small and medium businesses with no or little exposure in other States.

 

Yes they do. They know the state of our economy, Victoria really bad, and tourism and travel industries hit extremely hard. Most other industries rallying especially in states with next to no Covid.
They just feel that people manipulating a flawed system should not be able to pocket there taxes, whether you want to call that stimulus up to you.
Was there any stimulus for non business fulltime workers this year? Jeez what an opportunity tax returns could have been to inject some money back into economy..

 

Listed companies' $1.8b JobKeeper take raises judgment questions

@Property Baron You may find the AFR article of interest.

 

There is Jobkeeper 2.0 announced already. From late September when the fist 6 months finish.
Requires 3 months rather than 1 month drop in turnover, payments then go for 3 months then required to requalify again. A few other tweaks
Still requires 30/50% downturn.

ATO have announced Jobkeeper data integrity unit to check on unusual turnover claims through big data.
Those in an industry where they are reporting outside the equivalent norms to qualify for JK should expect a ‘please explain’.
JobKeeper Payment Scheme – Compliance and Surviving an ATO Audit

 

I will have some on the ground news on this new 2.0 version in a few weeks but from what I have been told it is still very easy to artificially suppress monthly revenue in order to manipulate jobkeeper. But lets wait and see. Hopefully the gov has cottoned on to the mistakes made in version 1.0 but I won't hold my breath on that.

 

I don’t think so. If the same company tells you it’s easy peasy to get jobkeeper 2.0 they are either fudging things Illegally and will eventually get caught, or they are simply lying about being as busy as ever and have indeed had a drop of revenue.

Consider this. For 2.0 you have to prove your business has dropped 30% at a quarterly level (3 months). The only way these guys would genuinely continue being on the scheme whilst having had a boom in activity is deferring invoices. Doing work but not invoicing it. And since you say they have been busy since March that means they would have been deferring since then which theoretically should appear in the next quarter. If they are deferring AGAIN then first quarter 2021 is where they are going to have a mountain of revenue to report and the ATO will definitely pick that discrepancy, audit them, and make them pay up if they are found to have deliberately deferred invoices to get on the stimulus (the ATO has that business’ revenue pattern for however long it’s been in business). Now if they do it AGAIN in that quarter they will have a ridiculous last quarter of the financial year, pretty much invoicing the equivalent of 6-10 months worth of revenue and they will definitely get caught then.

 

We will see how creative they get this time round and I hope you are right - we need what is best for the country.
What happens if a business says I have lost a bit of revenue not the 30% but I'm now going to lay off staff due to covid?
In jobkeeper 1.0 you only had to predict a loss in revenue

This is good news - A key difference is that eligibility for JobKeeper was originally determined based on projected GST turnover. A projected turnover...

To re qualify, employers will need to demonstrate they had an actual decline based on current GST turnover in each relevant quarter.

 

Your projection must be close to actual. Significant variances will result in a please explain from the ATO.
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www...g-to-ease-turnover-projection-predicament/amp

 

But how hard do you think the ATO are going to police this if it is on the back of a policy designed by the federal gov. Would they be willing to go hard and do company's for fraud or make them pay the money back which could cause more businesses to close, increasing unemployment. You really have to wonder.

 

It seems there has been a lot of argument about about how JobKeeper got ripped off or will be due to fudging of figures, but in reality, every small business has been on Single Touch Payroll since 1/7/19, so hours worked and gross pays and other info are available to the ATO each payroll period.

I would speculate, and I may be 100% wrong for whatever reason, that anyone attempting to rort the ATO, will be spat out on some report somewhere at some point. Or not, maybe they won't care, but it's a roll of the dice, with a possibly very expense outcome.

For those businesses on Cash BAS's there won't be any escape, and those with Accrual BAS's then maybe some flexibility (at a guess), but, on saying that, some mathematical genius would be required in comparing the gaming of the system to the stupidity of deferring invoices.

After all, business is business.