ATO highlights common STP2 mistakes

STP Phase 2 reporting started on 1 January 2022 and more than 200,000 employers have started reporting STP Phase 2 information for over 3 million individuals.

The ATO said as more employers move to the STP Phase 2 it is seeing a series of common mistakes that it said are easy to remedy if the correct steps are followed.

One of those is remapping pay codes or categories incorrectly.

The ATO advises employers to check if they have pay codes for items they need to itemise separately, such as bonuses, commissions and overtime to try and correct the mistake.

Another common error is the continuity of year-to-date (YTD) reporting. The ATO said if the solution employers use requires them to input their existing YTD amounts manually, make sure to bring over all the required amounts.

Finally, the ATO said it is also seeing employers incorrectly categorising allowance.

It said employers need to report all allowances separately in their STP Phase 2 reporting including eight allowance categories and one for “other allowances”. It also said to only report an amount as an “other allowance” if it doesn’t fit into one of the eight categories.

The ATO has a range of resources available to help employers with their STP Phase 2 reporting on its site.