Payroll tax
Compliance
Payroll tax compliance activities focus on identifying and contacting liable employers who have failed to register with us and auditing registered clients who appear to have understated their wages.
Current initiatives
This year we are investigating:
unregistered businesses that may be liable for payroll tax
businesses suspected of understating taxable wages
businesses suspected of not declaring/under-declaring fringe benefits
employers claiming multiple thresholds by failing to declare group structures
all refund requests
anomalies detected by matching with information provided by third parties
non-complying employers in the construction industry
late monthly return lodgers.
Common errors
The most common errors for payroll tax include:
failing to register when total liable wages exceed the NSW threshold
failing to include all liable wages in the total wages calculation (including apprentice/trainee wages, superannuation, taxable fringe benefits, etc)
incorrectly classifying employees as contractors - in certain cases 'contractors' may be considered to be 'employees' under the Act
failing to declare fringe benefits
incorrectly listing group status, including failing to register a related entity such as:
holding subsidiary relationships (mandatory grouping)
common control relationships (common shareholders/directors/beneficiaries or any combination of these)
common use of employees
failing to declare interstate wages
incorrectly claiming an exemption for certain wages
late lodgement of monthly or annual returns.
Recovery of unpaid payroll tax
For more information on how the Chief Commissioner of State Revenue can recover unpaid payroll tax, read:
More information
