IRD updates

Minimum Wage Increase

On 1 April 2024 the minimum wage will increase to $23.15 per hour. This rate applies to all employees 16 years and over. The starting-out and training hourly minimum wage rates will increase to $18.52 per hour, remaining at 80% of the adult minimum wage.
TIP: At company level, the Payroll / bulk update / Minimum Wage option will allow any company to adjust the minimum rate for all staff at once.
Of course farmers using the paycard top up may need to adjust staff salaries with the minimum rate changing. They sometimes try to avoid this by changing the number of standard hours the employees are required to work. The top up and Paycard top up will automatically change the legislated minimum rate in the background to $23.15 per hour, so nothing should need to be changed manually for that.

Living Wage

The Living Wage rate is voluntary and currently $26.00 per hour.

ACC Earner Levy increase

From 1 April 2024 the ACC Earner Levy will increase from 1.53% per $100 liable earnings to 1.60% per $100.
Companies will notice that the staff tax is now higher by a smaller amount.

Student Loan Threshold Change

The Student Loan Threshold from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 will increase to $464 per week. This means that employees can earn a little more before the student loan deduction deducts 12%. Note: For all these changes, if a company is banking payments to their staff manually on a regular basis, they will need to check the net amounts to bank after 1st April. If any company has a regular payment to PaySauce as a Push payment after 1st April they may need to change the amount banked is correct.Note: The 1st April is a Monday and lots of companies running fortnightly pays will start running their new cycle from 1st to 14th so if staff are on minimum wage, any minimum rate changes will be easily handled from the beginning of the cycle. But some could have the 1st April right in the middle of their pay cycle and companies may want to split the employees' pays into 2 portions so they can pay the first week at the old rate, and the second week at the new minimum rate.