JobKeeper payments will drop to between $750 and $1,200 per fortnight beyond September, with eligibility tightened

JobKeeper 2.0 will see

  1. payments per employee drop in two stages (from the 28th September 2020 and then from the 4th January 2021) and
  2. new eligibility tests for businesses looking to remain on JobKeeper beyond September.
  3. 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.

Now businesses need to demonstrate that they have suffered an ongoing significant decline in turnover using actual GST turnover, rather than projected GST turnover.

The program will run to 28 March 2021.

 

JobKeeper 2.0 – from 28 September 2020

Payments

  • The current $1,500 per fortnight JobKeeper payment will be reduced to $1,200 per fortnight,

and $750 per fortnight for employees working less than 20 hours a week.

New eligibility tests

  • Businesses will be required to show an actual decline in turnover for both the June (Q4 20) and September (Q1 21) quarters to qualify for JobKeeper 2.0.

 

JobKeeper 2.0 – from 4 January 2021

Payments

  • The rate will again fall to $1,000 per fortnight,

and $650 for people working less than 20 hours a week.

New eligibility tests

  • Businesses will need to reassess their turnover to demonstrate that they have met the decline in turnover test for each of the June (Q4 20), September (Q1 21) and December (Q2 21) 2020 quarters i.e. all 3 quarters

 

This makes sense, we all know the stimulus is both generous and will need to be paid back later.

Consider that in the original JobKeeper program:

  • Stimulus is still needed for some businesses but it should really be more targeted this time, many businesses did not suffer beyond the initial months and have in fact benefited from the payments,
  • Similarly many people have earned more than they normally do, Treasury estimates 1 in 4 of the 3.5 million workers currently covered under the program was earning $550 more than they would ordinarily.

So this time JobKeeper 2.0 is more targeted:

  • It will cost a further $16 billion compared to the original JobKeeper programs $70 billion cost
  • The Treasury expects to see the workers covered fall to just 1.4 million workers for the December 2020 quarter, before dropping to 1 million workers in the March 2021 quarter. The original JobKeeper covered 3.5 million workers.

 

Let’s all now pray for a vaccine and that Trump is not re-elected!

General Advice warning: the information in this article is general in nature, it is not advice specific to your needs. If you want to act upon the information in this article then you should seek advice from a qualified professional. VJC WM accepts no liability to any party for acting from this information unless they have sought advice in a formal engagement with VJC WM for this purpose.