On the 1st April 2019 Payday Filing became mandatory. For many businesses, this has created a lot of extra work, as payday filing must be completed every time employees are paid.

Depending on your current system, you may have to run through specific menu options, create special files for different filing types, and remember where you saved them. Then, log in to myIR, and navigate through some more options to eventually find a page to upload those files.

You didn’t forget where you saved them and what they were called, did you? Did you double check you uploaded the right file to the correct page? Made sure it’s all correct and successfully filed? Time to manually update the filing status in your system, or it may not believe you. Did you select the correct payday period when you did that part? … Arrgh!

Our clients don’t have to worry about any of the above. We file employee detail changes, submit all those pesky KiwiSaver forms for new hires, opt out requests, and deduction changes; while also telling Inland Revenue what you’ve paid each employee every pay day. That’s right, you read that correctly – we do it all for them!

Payday Filing. Sorted.

More information about Payday Filing can be found at Inland Revenue’s website.

ACC Rates & Threshold

• The ACC earner levy that is collected as part of the PAYE deduction remains the same at 1.39 percent
• The maximum earnings for which ACC earner levies applies increases from $126,286 to $128,470

Student Loans

• The annual Student Loan repayment threshold has increased from $19,448 to $19,760

KiwiSaver

• Employee contributions now include options of 6% and 10%

Adult Minimum Wage

• The adult minimum wage will increase $1.20 cents from $16.50 to $17.70 an hour effective 1 April 2019
• This applies to all employees aged 16 and over who are not starting-out workers or trainees, unless they are involved in supervising or training other employees

Starting-out and Trainees

• The starting-out and training minimum wage will increase from $13.20 to $14.16 an hour, being 80 percent of the adult minimum wage

Under 16

• There is no minimum wage for employees aged under 16 but all other employment rights and entitlements still apply
• When looking at whether an employee who is 16 years or older is a starting-out worker, time spent employed by an employer before the employee turned 16 must be included when calculating the time that employee has been continuously employed

We automatically update any employee that is being paid below the new minimum wage. If you have employees that should be excluded please let us know.

To find out more about the starting-out and trainee criteria visit employment.govt.nz.

Domestic Violence Leave

People affected by domestic violence, who have worked in their job for six months, can claim up to 10 days of paid leave per year. This leave is separate from annual, sick, and bereavement leave.

The new law also allows employees to request short-term flexible working arrangements as they recover
from domestic violence.

For more information visit business.govt.nz.