On 6 August 2020, Josh Frydenberg announced additional changes to the JobKeeper 2.0 program to 28 March 2021, easing some of the eligibility criteria for staff and amending some of the reduction in turnover requirements for businesses. The treasurer cited the stage 4 restrictions in Melbourne as the reason for these amendments.
Under the previous changes, dubbed JobKeeper 2.0, employees may have failed the eligibility requirements if they were not employed on 1 March 2020. However, under these new proposed changes, employees may now be eligible for JobKeeper payments from 3 August 2020 if they were employed as at 1 July 2020.
In addition, businesses will no longer need to reassess their eligibility with reference to the actual turnover for the June 2020 quarter. Instead, this will be a requirement for the September and December 2020 quarters.
Eligibility
Under the proposed changes, businesses will now need to pass on projected or actual GST turnover test as follows.