On Tuesday 29th of April, we were lucky to have Tony Nagle and Ben Chiverton from Nagle Accounting walk us through the steps involved with applying for JobKeeper in an online webinar, and they answered numerous questions about the complexities of the JobKeeper Program established by the Federal Government in response to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. We had a terrific number of people watching the webinar and asking numerous questions!
Tony and Ben explained what’s involved with applying for JobKeeper, and the various issues around eligibility. There’s a lot of questions about how people’s financial circumstances affect their eligibility, and how to best present your case in applying for the JobKeeper program.
We explored the fluid nature of the legislation and the application of this legislation at the moment – information is changing as the programs were put together quickly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the government and the Australian Taxation Office are refining and revising the guidelines as they go. So it’s a good idea to keep up-to-date with the guidance about these programs that the ATO are regularly publishing and updating on their website.
Tony and Ben’s advice included the need to keep clear financial records in order to be able to explain to the ATO why you’re eligible for JobKeeper. The basic test is that you have to be able to demonstrate through your financial figures that you’ve lost 30% or more of your work income in the same period this year (2020) as compared to the same period last year (2019); this could be by comparing income for March 2019 to March 2020, or comparing financial quarters between last year and this year. Tony and Ben also pointed out that even if you’re not eligible according to when you first apply the test, you may be eligible later on if your income level does drop.
We also explored the difference in accounting terms between cash accounting and accrual accounting – this can make a big difference to meeting the eligibility requirements. Cash accounting is when a transaction hits your bank account, while accrual accounting is when you invoice someone; so, your record of payment is based on either when you invoice a client (accrual accounting) or when they pay you (cash accounting).
Tony and Ben also discussed the differences between JobSeeker and JobKeeper payments – an important point that they emphasised was that people need to avoid ‘double dipping’, even if unintentional. Don’t apply for (or more importantly receive) both JobKeeper & JobSeeker payments – the government will determine later on if you’ve been overpaid and they will take steps to recover the overpayments. If in doubt, contact the ATO as soon as you can to correct any potential mistakes!
My thanks to Tony and Ben for giving up their time on a Tuesday evening (so that our Members from Western Australia could join us after work), and also to Simon Callow-Wright for handling the technical aspects of our webinar and fielding questions from our members.
Andrew Brinsmead
Executive Committee Member
(eNews 97 - May 2020)
JobKeeper and Beyond - Zoom Seminar
There are a lot of questions around JobKeeper - who is eligible, the nuts and bolts of applying,
not to mention what other options are available when so many are suffering income loss.
Join Tony Nagle and Ben Chiverton from Nagle Accounting, who have a focus on film crew and cast taxation, as they discuss how to navigate the recently introduced government support options.
This was a live MEMBERS ONLY event with Q&A ,
hosted by Andrew Brinsmead from the ASE on Tuesday April 28, 2020.
The video and documents have been taken offline as events are moving quickly and the advice is likely to become outdated.