Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg have announced that the current $1,500 per fortnight JobKeeper payment will be reduced to $1,200 per fortnight from 28 September, and $750 per fortnight for employees working less than 20 hours a week.

From 4 January, the rate will again fall to $1,000 per fortnight, and $650 for people working less than 20 hours a week.

The program will run to 28 March 2021, at a further cost of $16 billion, taking the entire JobKeeper program to $86 billion.

The announcement comes after Treasury released a snapshot of its JobKeeper review findings earlier, revealing that up to one in four of the 3.5 million workers currently covered under the program were earning $550 more than they would ordinarily.

New eligibility tests

Treasury had also argued for a fresh eligibility test for businesses looking to remain on JobKeeper beyond September.

Businesses will still be required to demonstrate the required reduction in turnover- 30 per cent for businesses with turnovers of $1 billion or less, 50 per cent for those with turnover of more than $1 billion, and 15 per cent for ACNC-registered charities.

However, the government will now require businesses to reapply the tests for the June and September quarters to be eligible for JobKeeper 2.0 beyond September.

“Employers will need to demonstrate that they've met the relevant decline in turnover in both the June and September quarters to be eligible for the JobKeeeper payment in the December quarter,” said Mr Frydenberg.

“Employers will need to demonstrate that they have met the relevant decline in each of the previous three quarters ending on 31 December 2020 to remain eligible for the payment in the March quarter 2021.”

While there are currently 3.5 million workers covered under JobKeeper, Treasury expects the new eligibility rules to see the figure fall to just 1.4 million workers for the December 2020 quarter, before dropping to 1 million workers in the March 2021 quarter.

What’s next?

Unlike JobKeeper 1.0, we now have the benefit of time on our side. These changes do not come into effect until the 28th of September 2020. Treasury will release the legislation in the coming weeks. Once we have this we will be able to retest our business clients and advise on the next steps.

If you’d like to talk through what this means for your business, book in a call with us here

source: AccountantsDaily