Hiring more employees for your business? The NSW Government wants to help lighten the impact on cash flow by providing the Jobs Action Plan incentive.
What is the Jobs Action Plan?
The Jobs Action Plan is a NSW government cash incentive for businesses paying payroll tax to employ new full-time workers. It is paid out in respect of new employees hired which increase a business’s total NSW headcount over at least two years.
How do I register for the Jobs Action Plan?
A business must register any new jobs before 1 July 2019 to be eligible for the scheme.
When registering, the business must advise both when they employ someone in a newly created position and the number of NSW FTE employees immediately before the new job was filled.
An online registration must be made within 90 days of the date the new job starts.
Under the rebate, there must always be a person employed in the job. If a position is left vacant for less than 30 days, it’s not considered a vacancy. If the 30 days are exceeded, the rebate may be paid on a pro-rata basis, if the government accepts that it was under extraordinary circumstances.
When is position eligible for the rebate?
A position is eligible for the rebate if it is newly created and a person is employed, full-time, part-time or casual.
- Other key criteria include
- Starting on or after 1 July 2011 and before 1 July 2019
- Maintaining the position for the minimum employment period
- Having your number of FTE employees prior to creating the new job increasing and maintaining this for two years
- The work being performed in NSW to at least 50 per cent.
A position is excluded if relates to a contractor or the person was already working for your business in the past 12 months.
Calculating the amount of FTE employees
Essentially FT employee count can be calculated using the following formula:
F + (A / B) = FTE
F = the number of NSW full-time employees on that date
A = the total number of hours worked in the previous pay period by all NSW part time employees employed on that date
B = average number of hours worked in the previous pay period by all NSW full time employees employed on that date
- When calculating the number of FTE employees:
- where a person starts in a new job, exclude that person from the calculations.
- on the first and second anniversaries of the start date of the new job, include that person in the calculations.
Claiming the Jobs Action Plan rebate
To claim the rebate, an online application for the payment should be made within 30 days after the first and/or second anniversary date of employment.
Where part-time employees are part of the claim, the rebate will be pro-rata based on the NSW FTE hours of employment.
If the increase in the FTE is not maintained for the second year, you will not receive payment of the rebate for that period. You do not need to repay any rebate received for the first year of employment.
Should you require assistance with obtaining the Jobs Action Plan or even getting your bookkeeping & payroll up to speed, please contact our team for a streamlined process to help optimise your outcomes with the rebate.
