Providing payment summaries to employees electronically

As an employer, you must give each of your employees a payment summary at the end of the financial year. The payment summary must show the payments you have made to them and the amounts you withheld from those payments. Payment summaries should be provided to your employees by no later than 14 July.

It is important that you provide payment summaries to all your employees, even if you were not required to withhold any tax. You are still required to include these payments in your payment summary annual report that you send to us.

Can payment summaries be provided electronically?

Payment summaries can be provided to your employees electronically. It is important that you advise your employees how they can access their payment summary electronically.

Alternatively, you can use your software to print the individual payment summaries ('self-print' payment summaries) and provide them to your employees.

Do not send printed copies of your employee's electronic payment summaries to us. Our systems cannot process payment summaries printed in this format.

What requirements have to be met?

All electronic payment summaries you provide must be:

non-editable
letter quality print or laser printed so they can be easily read
transmitted to the employee by electronic means
printed on A4 size paper.

Where you are intending to provide payment summaries electronically, you need to contact your employees and advise them that they can receive their payment summaries either:

electronically
on paper.

You must also:

advise your employees when the payment summaries are available and ensure they know how to access and print them
ensure the method you choose to distribute electronic payment summaries to your employees is secure and meet your obligations as an employer under privacy and taxation law.

For more information about the requirements for producing self-print and electronic payment summaries, refer to Electronic reporting specifications - self-printing pay as you go withholding (PAYGW) payment summaries on our software developers site.

Which payment summaries can be provided electronically?

You can provide the following payment summaries electronically:

PAYG payment summary - individual non-business (NAT 0046)
PAYG payment summary - foreign employment (NAT 73297)
PAYG payment summary - business and personal services income (NAT 72545)
PAYG payment summary - employment termination payment (prior to 1 July 2012) (NAT 70868)
PAYG payment summary - superannuation lump sum (NAT 70947)
PAYG payment summary - superannuation income stream (NAT 70987)
PAYG payment summary - where ABN not quoted (NAT 3283).

More information

For more information about payment summaries, refer to Pay as you go (PAYG) withholding - home .

Last Modified: Tuesday, 8 January 2013

Our commitment to you

We are committed to providing you with accurate, consistent and clear information to help you understand your rights and entitlements and meet your obligations.

If you follow our information and it turns out to be incorrect, or it is misleading and you make a mistake as a result, we will take that into account when determining what action, if any, we should take.

Some of the information on this website applies to a specific financial year. This is clearly marked. Make sure you have the information for the right year before making decisions based on that information.

If you feel that our information does not fully cover your circumstances, or you are unsure how it applies to you, contact us or seek professional advice.

Copyright

You are free to copy, adapt, modify, transmit and distribute this material as you wish (but not in any way that suggests the ATO or the Commonwealth endorses you or any of your services or products)