The government announced recently a new initiative called Single Touch Payroll. It aims to cut red tape for employers by simplifying tax and super processes. It aims to benefit the ATO (and therefore the taxpayer) by providing them with more data and in a more real-time manner.

Single Touch Payroll will also streamline aspects such as Tax File Number declarations and Super Choice forms.

Employees are increasingly on top of their Superannuation rights. Indeed many are now regularly monitoring their Superannuation account balances.

Thankfully the days where businesses were able to avoid paying their Super for large periods of time is more and more coming to an end. It used to be that an employee might have only found out about problems with payments to their Super fund quite a long time down the track. Not any more. With the increasing take up of Super funds with bank accounts that employees can frequently log in to and monitor, employers are now very much being kept on their toes by their diligent employees.

The 2014 Federal Budget had plenty in it, from a new Medical Research Fund to a fuel excise levy to a co-payment at the doctors. Here are some important items from the budget that affect payroll.