As a Bookkeeper Melbourne I get quite a few questions about Paid Parental Leave(PPL). PPL was introduced by the government on 01/01/2011. It is a 100% government funded scheme which provides 18 weeks of PPL at a weekly minimum wage of $570.00 gross. It does have an impact on the employers/bookkeepers as to record keeping, reporting, payroll etc.

From 01/07/2011 employers are responsible to provide the PPL to their employees each week/fortnight/month as per the pay cycle, which in turn will be paid by the Centrelink. Employers will make a claim with the Centrelink for the PPL on behalf of their employees, who will in turn access the eligibility of the employee for PPL. Employers are not liable to pay Superannuation and payroll tax on the PPL.

As per the reporting requirements, employers do have to maintain the records for a period of 7 years for the payments received from the Centrelink and payments paid to the employee. As PPL does not attract the Superannuation Guarantee or Payroll Tax Liability, so from a bookkeeping viewpoint, these payments cannot be identified as Wages/Allowances. They will have to be recorded separate from the Wages. Having said that PPL still needs to be shown on the payslips and group certificates as a part of the Gross Payments. Employers will still need to deduct PAYG from these payments as per the tax tables provided by the ATO.

Please refer the ATO website for further details.