ato

 
 
Show download pdf controls
Show print controls

  • Tax table for daily and casual workers

    For payments made on or after 13 October 2020

    Use the Withholding lookup tool to quickly work out the amount to withhold (XLSX 33KB)This link will download a file.

    Using this table

    You should use this table if you make any of the following payments to payees, who have claimed the tax-free threshold, on a daily or casual basis:

    • salary, wages, allowances and leave loading paid to employees
    • paid parental leave
    • directors' fees
    • salary and allowances paid to office holders (including members of parliament, statutory office holders, defence force members and police officers)
    • payments to labour-hire workers
    • payments to religious practitioners.

    You also use this table where a payee is engaged on a daily or casual basis, but not paid daily.

    Example:

    An employee works on a casual basis as a bartender for two separate entities during the week and is paid on an hourly basis. The employee has claimed the tax-free threshold from both employers. Both employers should use this tax table to calculate withholding from payments made for the hours worked.

    End of example

    For all other cases, use the relevant PAYG withholding weekly tax table or fortnightly tax table.

    If you employ individuals under a working holiday makers visa you must use the Tax table for working holiday makers for all payments made to them, including lump sum payments.

    The payee must have claimed the tax-free threshold to use this table.

    When using this table, do not withhold an amount for:

    • Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) debts
    • VET Student Loan (VSL) debts
    • Financial Supplement (FS) debts
    • Student Start-up Loan (SSL) debts, or
    • Trade Support Loan (TSL) debts.

    When using this table, do not adjust the withholding amount for a payee who is claiming a Medicare levy exemption or reduction. Medicare levy variations do not apply to this table.

    See also:

    Working out the withholding amount

    To work out the amount you need to withhold using the tax table, you must:

    1. Ignore any cents, input payee’s daily earnings into the Withholding lookup tool (XLSX 33KB)This link will download a file and refer to the corresponding amount to be withheld in column 2.
    2. If the payee has claimed any tax offsets, see Claiming tax offsets to work out the daily value of the amount claimed. Subtract the daily value of the tax offsets from the amount found in step 1.

    Example:

    An employee earns $193.62 and claims tax offsets of $500. Ignore cents, input $193 into the Withholding lookup tool (XLSX 33KB)This link will download a file and find the corresponding amount to be withheld in column 2 of $30.00. Reduce this amount by the daily value of the tax offsets of $2.00 ($500 × 0.0038 rounded to the nearest dollar).

    The final withholding amount is $28.00 ($30.00 − $2.00).

    End of example

    Using a formula

    The withholding amounts shown in this table can be expressed in a mathematical form.

    If you have developed your own payroll software package, you can use the formulas and the coefficients outlined in Statement of formulas for calculating amounts to be withheld.

    Where the payee is entitled to the seniors and pensioners tax offset, replace with the appropriate coefficients from Tax table for seniors and pensioners.

    Last modified: 13 Oct 2020QC 63817