Employers

As a Worker Director, your company is the Employer and you are the employee/Worker. This means that there are certain legal obligations your company must fulfil.

• The company must register itself as an Employer, and yourself as an individual employee/Worker.
• The company must complete and lodge a return form with LeavePlus every quarter.
• The company must pay the Long Service Leave Charges when invoiced by LeavePlus.

Worker Directors fall into one of two categories depending on how they are paid: those who take a consistent and provable PAYG wage, and those who are not (often taking drawings or inconsistent amounts from the company).

If a Worker Director takes a consistent wage provable through pay slips showing PAYG and tax withheld at the time of payment, then you can report wages for the period consistent with the days worked on your Quarterly Return.

If the Worker Director does not take a consistent wage and you cannot provide proof of your PAYG wage, you are required to report your service to LeavePlus based on the ‘Minimum Pay Rate’ for your kind of work. You can find these in the menus on the Workers Days and Wages Returns page.

Any subsequent Long Service Leave claim for the worker director will then be paid out according to this same rate.

In any given Workers’ Days and Wages return period where a Worker Director performs covered work for at least two-thirds of their employment, the employer must record 100% of the Worker Director’s employment on the quarterly return. This is part of the definition of ‘Construction Worker’ found in the Rules of the Scheme. It is often referred to as the ‘Two-thirds rule for rounding up’.

For example, a Worker Director may perform a mix of covered (on-site-construction = 47 days) and non-covered (office-admin/tendering = 18 days) work.

Where the proportion of covered work vs non-covered work is more than two-thirds (in this case 72%), the days and wages must be rounded up to reflect the full employment period.

For all instances where the proportion of covered work vs non-covered work does not exceed two-thirds, then the service should be reported only as the days performing covered work and their equivalent total gross wages.

Where a company is a trustee of a trust, directors of the company are employees of the company and Workers under the scheme and must be included on Worker Days & Wages Returns if:

• The Director is performing construction trade work covered by the scheme for more than 5 days in the month and
• The Director’s wage is subject to personal income tax as a PAYG regular income (weekly, fortnightly, or monthly) where tax is withheld at the time of payment and remitted to the ATO.

If both criteria are met, the employer must report service for the Director as an employee/Worker of the company on Worker Days & Wages returns and pay long service leave contribution charges to LeavePlus.

If all criteria are not met, the Director is classified as a Working Sub-Contractor.

The rate of pay for your claim for a Long Service Leave Benefit matches your ordinary rate of pay as a Worker Director. LeavePlus is regularly updated with your wage information via your quarterly return submission. We use this information to present you with an average rate of pay over the last year when you apply to claim a Long Service Leave Benefit.

If you accept the rate of pay presented in your claim, you won’t need to provide any payslips or further information. Payment will generally occur within 1 to 3 business days from application for this type of claim.

In some cases, we may not be able to offer you an average or you may choose not to accept the offered rate. These types of claims will be more complex and will require additional time to process.

We will request further information and financial documentation to determine an accurate rate of pay for your claim, consistent with the documentation you provide.

If you are unable to provide the required financial documentation, LeavePlus may pay your claim at the Minimum Contribution Rate for your trade.

Any excess above this rate from previous contributions will then be refunded to your company in a separate ‘adjustment’ process.