Country Codes

(from the ATO's Business Implementation Guide)

Where income involves other tax jurisdictions, the income must be provided for the specific country for that tax jurisdiction. Australia has tax treaties with many countries to reduce or eliminate double taxation caused by overlapping tax jurisdictions. These treaties:

• Provide a level of security about the tax rules that will apply to particular international transactions
  
  
• Prevent avoidance and evasion of taxes on various forms of income flows between treaty partners.

New treaties are regularly formed with foreign countries. Since September 2018, the ATO receives and exchanges financial account information with participating foreign tax authorities. As such, specific Income Types must report YTD income by Country Code to assist Australia to meet its international commitments:

• Foreign Employment – Australian residents for tax purposes are taxed on their worldwide income. If the Payee worked overseas or provided services to an organisation located outside of Australia (and Foreign Tax was paid on these earnings), payments must be defined both as Foreign Employment (if the qualification period is or will be satisfied) and Country Code where the work was performed or the foreign entity is located (“host” country)
  
  
• Inbound Assignees to Australia – an inbound assignee who is seconded to work in Australia for an Australian entity but is employed by an offshore entity and is paid, in whole or part of their base salary and other remuneration, by an offshore entity. As the work performed in Australia may be subject to payroll taxes, superannuation guarantee and PAYGW, but not wholly paid by the Australian entity, the income must be reported by Country Code of the offshore entity (“home” country)
  
  
• Working Holiday Maker – those Payees who have a specific class of Visa (417 and 462 only) to enable them to temporarily work in Australia must have their income reported by Country Code of their visa (“home” country). All Payment Types/labels within the Income Stream Collection must be reported for each combination of Income Type/Country Code.

A valid Country Code is required for these Income Types. Australia and its tax jurisdictions may not be reported: Australia (au), Norfolk Island (nf), Christmas Island (cx), Cocos Islands (cc) and Heard and McDonald Islands (hm).

The country code must be reported as the lower-case value of the international standard ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code. For example; Germany must be reported as “de”. You can search for a country code here.

STP Creator - MYOB Users

In STP Creator, the above information is entered/selected on the Employment Details screen, accessible from the Payee Details screen. STP Creator will extract the details from the Employee's Card in MYOB and this can be used to pre-fill the selections. Also if changes are made to the Employee Card, you will be required to update the Employment Details screen to ensure it reflects the changes.

STP Creator - non MYOB Users

In STP Creator, the above information is entered/selected on the Employment Details screen, accessible from the Payee Details screen.