New round of Wage Subsidy announced
The Government has announced that Wage Subsidy is making a return for Round 4. This was signaled when the recent increase to the alert levels first occurred in the weekend.
Applications will be able to be made through Work and Income from 1pm Thursday 4th of March, with payments to me made from Monday the 8th.
The amount of the subsidy will be the same as earlier reiterations:
- $585.80 per full-time (20 hours+) employee; and
- $350.00 per part-time (less than 20 hours) employee.
The main qualifying criteria is that revenue is down 40% for a consecutive 14-day period between 28 February and 21 March compared against a typical 14-day period between 4 January and 14 February.
The information released at the time of writing is limited to what we have discussed here. Full details such as the terms and conditions are still to be released. Presumably the full detail will be released in the next 24 hours. Here is a link to the relevant page.
A few key important observations (subject to change once full information is released):
- It seems that the wage subsidy and the Resurgence Support Payment can be received at the same time; and
- The subsidy does not appear to be limited to the Auckland region (and this differs to comments made in passing by the Prime Minister a few days ago); and
- Since applications open tomorrow and 14 days has not passed since 28 February, a forecast decline in revenue must be allowable for making a claim.
Update on Resurgence Support Payment (RSP)
Per our blog on Monday, there is to be a second round of the RSP.
The Inland Revenue have updated their guidance to say that applications for the second round open 8am on the 8th of March via Inland Revenue’s MyIR online platform (or via your tax agent).
We have done or assisted a few applications for the first round of the RSP and we are happy to report the IRD platform is very user-friendly.
It is unclear what happens with the second round of the RSP if the current alert levels are extended beyond the end of this week.