Which employees are eligible for the JobKeeper payment?
As a minimum, an employee must have been employed by the employer on 1 March 2020 and continues to be employed by that employer, in order to be eligible for the payment. This means any new employees employed after 1 March 2020 are not eligible for the payment. Additionally, eligible employees are employees who:
- were stood down before the commencement of this subsidy;
- are re-engaged by a business that was their employer on 1 March 2020;
- are at least 16 years of age;
- are either full time and part time;
- are long-term casuals, ie casuals employed on a regular basis for longer than 12 months as at 1 March 2020;
- are an Australian citizen, the holder of a permanent visa, or a Special Category (Subclass 444) Visa Holder;
- are not in receipt of a JobKeeper Payment from another employer.
Payroll Easy JobKeeper Eligibility Report
The JobKeeper Eligibility Report easily allows employers to determine the eligibility status of their employees. You can access this report by navigating to Reports > JobKeeper Eligibility Report (under the “Employees” list).
The eligibility status will either be:
- Eligible, ie based on all relevant employee data, the employee meets the eligibility test;
- Ineligible, ie based on all relevant employee data, the employee does not meet the eligibility test; or
- May be eligible, ie certain assumptions have been made based on relevant employee data, so best to double-check with the employee so a definite decision can be made.
If an employee is deemed either ‘Ineligible’ or ‘May be eligible’, the report will detail the reasons for such decision:
The assumptions we make when determining an employee as ‘May be eligible’ are as follows:
- Where an employee is not claiming the tax free threshold that means this job is not their primary source of income. An employee is not eligible for the JobKeeper payment if they are already in receipt of such payment from another employer. It is best to check with the employee whether they are already receiving the JobKeeper payment from another employer.
- Employees that do not have the ‘Australian Resident for tax purposes’ checkbox ticked on their tax file declaration may not be eligible because they are not an Australian citizen, the holder of a permanent visa, or a Special Category (Subclass 444) Visa Holder. It is best to check with the employee however on their visa status. If you record employee visas using our Qualifications function, you can generate a Qualifications Report to review employee visa details.
Employees configured with an employment type of ‘Labour Hire’ or ‘Superannuation Income Stream’ are considered ineligible.
N.B. The JobKeeper Eligibility Report does not include incomplete or terminated employees. If you have reinstated an employee, you must ensure they are reactivated in the system so that they appear in the report.
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Terri McKinnon is the Marketing Manager at EBS. With a focus on delivering communications that support the EBS community and reflecting the company’s core values. Her breadth of experience sees her building out the communications strategy, and being hands-on in the delivery of the website, collateral, success stories, social media, and managing our events and customer user groups.