Change Tax Year (Payroll, Transactions, End of Year) is used to close the current tax year and open the new one. When you change the tax year, period end dates for the previous financial year are cleared and only the first period end date for the new financial year is displayed.
After the tax year is changed, pay period values from previous tax years can still be accessed through selected reports.
Critical: You must upgrade to MicrOpay Evo version 9.5 SP1 before you run the Change Tax Year process.
Change Tax Year process
Important:
This should be the last step for your end of financial year process.
We recommend balancing your STP Update and reporting the final STP event for the year before you change tax year.
You must complete the Change Tax Year process before entering transactions for your first pay in the new financial year.
You must back up your database before completing the Change Tax Year process.
Current Tax Year
The current tax year will show as Start Date, 1/7/2025 and End Date, 30/6/2026.
Reset Tax Variation Date
An employee will have a Variation Valid Date recorded when they have been granted a withholding variation by the ATO to reduce the amount of tax withheld from their pay. A Variation Valid Date can only be entered when the employee has a specified tax rate, i.e., their Tax Type is set to Specify Rate and a value is entered in the Tax Rate field.
The Variation Valid Date records the expiry date of the withholding variation. If an employee requires an extension of the variation past that date, they must submit a new request to the ATO.
If you run Change Tax Year with the Reset Tax Variation Date checkbox ticked, the Variation Valid Date for any employee who has one recorded will be automatically updated from the current financial year to the new one, e.g. from 30 June 2026 to 30 June 2027.
Before you start processing pays in the new financial year, make sure that you have confirmed the withholding variation status of all employees with a current Variation Valid Date. If they are no longer entitled to a withholding variation, you should update their Tax Details so they are on the correct tax rate and the Variation Valid Date is removed.
The Tax Details Report (Payroll, Reports, End of Year) includes details of any employee with a Variation Valid Date. If you did not keep a copy of the report when you printed it as part of your EOY preparation, you can print it again. You can also customise the Employees grid to add the Variation Date column. This column will contain the date for any employee who has a Variation Valid Date recorded.
For more information about withholding variations, refer to www.ato.gov.au. Search for the terms withholding declaration or enter Quick Code QC19428.
Confirm the Change Tax Year has occurred
To confirm you have changed the tax year, go to Payroll, Maintenance, General, General Parameters and select the Tax Year tab.
After the change tax year has been completed for 2025-2026, you should see the details updated to 2026-2027, ready for your new financial year.
To check you have the correct pay end date for the first pay in the new financial year, go to Payroll, Maintenance, General, Pay Frequencies. You should see that all the previous financial year period end dates have been cleared and the first pay for the new financial year is showing. This date should be 1 July 2026 or later. Double-click into the Period End Date field to update if necessary and click OK to save.