As the festive season approaches and holiday trading ramps up, small business employers may be considering hiring new staff to help with the likely increase in sales activity.

When taking on new staff, business owners should keep in mind the following 'key things' when it comes to their employer tax and super obligations.

• Employers will need to make sure they are withholding the right amount of tax from payments they make to their employees and other payees. This is an important part of their role, as it will help their employees meet their end-of-year tax liabilities.
  Employers' accounting or payroll software, the ATO's tax tables or its online tax withheld calculator will help employers do this.
• Employers must pay Superannuation Guarantee ('SG') at the current rate of 11.5% to all eligible employees' super funds in full and on time to avoid paying the super guarantee charge. The ATO's super guarantee contributions calculator can help employers work out how much super to pay for each employee.
• If employers are still not reporting through single touch payroll ('STP') and they do not have an approved exemption, deferral or concession in place, they should start reporting now. If they have just started a business or recently employed staff, they will need to report through STP from their first payday. 
  Employers should remember that if they report through STP, they do not need to send the ATO their employee's completed TFN declaration, as the ATO has already received this information through their STP reporting. Employers should however keep their employee's completed TFN declaration for their own records.

Employers can refer to Obligations when people work for you for further information about employee tax and super obligations.

The bottom line

The Christmas and New Year holiday season is a great opportunity for businesses to 'cash in' on consumers' positive outlook and freer spending behaviours, albeit with an investment in [cost of] additional staff.

What your business doesn't want is to get to 30 June 2025 and discover you haven't accounted or budgeted for these extra holiday season staff expenses. If you're planning to add short-term staff to you workforce this summer, let's talk first – it could be a worthwhile and stress-relieving chat.