On Tuesday 6th October 2020, the federal government announced a new scheme called the “JobMaker Hiring Credit”. This new incentive was established to encourage businesses to employ young job seekers who have been left unemployed as a result of the ongoing covid-19 pandemic.
Timeline of Access to Payments & How Much Money Will Employers Receive
Eligible businesses will be able to access the payment for up to 12 months for each additional employee they hire between 7 October 2020 and 6 October 2021. Businesses will be able to claim up to $200 a week for each additional eligible employee they hire between the ages of 16 to 29 years, and up to $100 a week for new employees aged 30 to 35 years.
Employers can register new employees to be part of the scheme from Monday 7th December 2020 onwards. Registration can be completed online via the Australian Tax Office services, the Business Portal or face to face with a registered tax or BAS agent.
All in all, employers will be eligible for potentially up to $10,400 over a 12-month period for each new employee aged between 16 and 29 as well as a total of $5,200 for new employees aged between 30 and 35 years of age.
Claims to receive the first quarterly payment will open on Monday February 1st 2021 and the last day an employer will be able to make a claim for a new employee is 6th October 2021. If you hire someone under the scheme on the final date of 6th October 2021 than you will be able to claim a payment for a new employee until 6th October 2022.
More Eligibility Rules For Employers
Rules assigned to the scheme’s eligibility criteria outlined on the ATO website insist that an individual cannot receive JobMaker “if you also receive a JobKeeper payment for a fortnight which started during the JobMaker period”.
Employers will be deemed ineligible and unable to make use of the JobKeeper scheme if they had “the Major Bank Levy imposed on the entity, or a member of its consolidated group, for any quarter on or before 30 September 2020”.
They will also be ineligible if they are an Australian government agency or a local governing body. If the company is in liquidation or provisional liquidation or the individual employer has entered bankruptcy they will be deemed ineligible. The organisation must be an Australian business and cannot be ‘sovereign entity’ which means the organisation cannot be a “body politic of a foreign country or a foreign government agency”. However, resident subsidiaries of a sovereign entity may be eligible employers if the entity satisfies the other eligibility criteria and is not ineligible due to any other exclusion.
More Eligibility Rules For Employees
According to the ATO’s website an employee must have received either the JobSeeker Payment, Youth Allowance or Parenting Payment for a minimum of or two fortnight (28 days) within the six fortnights (84 days) prior to commencing employment.
To provide evidence of receiving either of these three payments new employees should show their employer a statement from their Centrelink payment summary or income statement. If an employee is working multiple jobs they can only receive a JobMaker payment from only one of their employers.
What Makes An Employee Ineligible For JobMaker
Under the new scheme employers are unable to hire their spouse or other family members such as their children or sibling or niece or nephew. This also includes adopted children and furthermore the spouse of any of their family members. An employer is also unable to employee themselves as a sole trader under JobMaker. They are also unable to hire partners of a partnership, trustees and beneficiaries of trusts. The directors or shareholders of companies are also deemed ineligible.
Other Rules Related to JobMaker
An employee who is currently aged 35 and soon to turn 36 is still eligible for JobMaker if the date they are hired by their new employer occurs before their 36th birthday. To be eligible to receive JobMaker the employee must work a minimum of 20 hours a week on average during the 12-month period of which they are employed as part of the JobMaker cycle.
JobMaker can only be claimed by new employees who have been hired after 7th October 2020 and therefore cannot be awarded to pre-existing employee who have been employed prior to the introduction of JobMaker.