JobMaker: The criteria for making a claim for businesses

The ATO recently opened registrations for businesses ahead of the first quarterly claim period starting in February next year.

Eligible businesses can access the payment for up to 12 months for each eligible additional employee they hire between 7 October 2020 and 6 October 2021.

They will be able to claim up to $200 a week for each additional eligible employee they hire aged 16 to 29 years, and up to $100 a week for those aged 30 to 35 years.

What are the conditions to making a claim?

For each JobMaker period, businesses must show an increase in their employee headcount and in the employee payroll, with the amount received based on the number of eligible employees they have hired.

Doing the employee headcount

The headcount includes both employees for which the business can claim JobMaker hiring credits as well as all other employees.

It includes full-time, part-time, casual, fixed-term and non-fixed-term employees, but excludes contractors or subcontractors.

In the first year of the scheme (October 2020 to October 2021), the baseline headcount is the headcount on 30 September 2020. If a business did not have any employees on that date, then their headcount is zero.

In the second year of the scheme (October 2021 to October 2022), the baseline headcount is updated based on the claims a business made in the first year.

The ATO said it will automatically calculate the adjusted baseline headcount and put it in the claim form for JobMaker periods five to eight. Businesses do not need to do this calculation; however, the ATO has committed to providing information about how it calculates the baseline headcount for JobMaker periods five to eight at a later date.

The total headcount for each JobMaker period will be the number of employees employed by the business on the last day of each JobMaker period. This will be regarded as the headcount test date.

The total headcount only includes employees that were employed on the test date, meaning employees who worked for the business during the JobMaker period, but stopped before the end of the period, cannot be included in the headcount.

Substituting eligible employees for those who are not eligible will not increase your headcount, and could potentially attract the ATO’s attention and take action to deny or recover payments claimed.

Key JobMaker dates and periods

The ATO has set out the key dates for each JobMaker period below:

Source: ATO