Coronavirus payroll tax relief

There have been a number of payroll tax relief measures to alleviate the impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19).

These include:

• refunds of payroll tax for 2 months
• a payroll tax holiday for 3 months
• deferral of paying payroll tax for the 2020 calendar year.

Refunds

Applications for payroll tax refunds closed on 31 May 2020.

If you applied on time and received an email confirming your eligibility for the refund and have not yet requested a reassessment of the eligible months, please urgently email your reassessment request to us at payrolltax@treasury.qld.gov.au.

We aim to process refunds within 5 business days. These refunds do not have to be repaid.

Depending on your eligibility, the refund months were either November and December 2019 or January and February 2020. If you are a half-yearly lodger, relief applied on a pro-rata basis.

Payroll tax holiday

Applications for the payroll tax holiday for employers (or part of a group of employers) who pay $6.5 million or less in Australian taxable wages closed on 31 May 2020.

These employers did not have to pay payroll tax for the months of January, February and March 2020.

This holiday relief does not have to be repaid.

Deferring payment

You can apply to defer paying your payroll tax for the 2020 calendar year. If you had already applied for an earlier deferral date, you do not need not reapply – it will be extended to 31 December 2020.

Have your 7-digit client number ready before you apply. You can find your client number and name in the top-left corner of OSR Online.

If you are waiting to hear about your application for payroll tax registration, you won’t yet have a client number. We will contact you as soon as possible.

Apply for deferral (Apply by 31 December 2020)

What happens next

Once your application has been processed, we will send a confirmation email.

• You won’t need to pay payroll tax returns for the 2020 calendar year.
• You must continue to lodge returns in OSR Online - without paying them - during this time.
• You will not have to pay interest on deferred payroll tax.
• You can resume paying returns at any time during the deferral period.

Related links

• See more information about coronavirus (COVID-19).
• Read the media release about support for businesses
• Find out about JobKeeper payment subsidies and payroll tax.