Wages

Wages and other payments to employees engaged on a permanent, temporary or casual basis are subject to payroll tax.

Payments made to certain contractors may also be deemed wages. Here is a breakdown of different wage types.

Exempt wages

Some wages are exempt from payroll tax. These include:

• adoption and maternity leave
• paid parental leave
• contributions to redundancy benefit schemes
• wages paid to employees absent from work to volunteer as firefighters or respond to other emergencies
• wages paid to a person while on military leave as a member of the Defence Forces
• bone fide redundancy or early retirement payments.

Read more about exempt wages on the rebates and exemptions page.

Here is a checklist of liable and non-liable wages.

Payroll tax assist

You can also use Payroll tax assist to help you determine if you are meeting your payroll tax obligations. Payroll tax assist will step you through how various taxable wage components are handled.

Use payroll tax assist now