Boosting cash flow for employers

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Temporary cash flow boosts will support small and medium businesses and not-for-profit organisations during the economic downturn associated with COVID-19.

Eligible businesses and not-for-profit (NFP) organisations who employ staff will receive between $20,000 to $100,000 in cash flow boost amounts by lodging their activity statements up to the month or quarter of September 2020.

The cash flow boosts will be delivered as credits in the activity statement system. They will generally be equivalent to the amount withheld from wages paid to employees for each monthly or quarterly period from March to June 2020. In practice, this means you keep the amounts you have withheld from payments for these periods. However, there are some exceptions.

An additional cash flow boost is applied when you lodge activity statements for each monthly or quarterly period from June to September 2020. These credits are equal to the total boosts credited for March to June 2020. They will be paid out in either two or four instalments depending on your reporting cycle.

What you need to know

  • For most businesses, the cash flow boost will automatically be credited to your account when you lodge your activity statement.
  • When you lodge your June 2020 activity statement, you may receive both initial and additional cash flow boosts as credits – see examples of what you will receive and check out our Cash flow boost estimator (XLSX, 5.3MB)This link will download a file to work out an estimate of your cash flow boost amount.
  • The cash flow boost will be applied to reduce liabilities arising from the same activity statement – if there is credit remaining after this occurs, you will generally receive a refund of that amount.
  • If you are due to receive a refund, we will generally pay it within 14 days.
  • You must be eligible for the initial cash flow boost, in order to be eligible for the additional cash flow boosts.
  • Any cash flow boost amounts you receive are non-assessable non-exempt (NANE) income and should be reported in the same way as you report other NANE income when lodging your tax return