Let's talk ACC Employer Invoices

Do you employ staff?

It’s that time of the year and if you have employees, you will receive an invoice  from ACC.  All businesses will pay employer levies to ACC to cover the cost of all work-related accidental injuries.   These levies go towards treatment and rehabilitation so your employee can get back to work as soon as possible. 

Your levies are generated based on the following:

Classification Unit

Your company is assigned a classification unit which aligns with different industries and these units have different levies on risks.   These classifications are represented by your BIC code (Business Industry Classification).  This code would align with your main work activities when you register for GST or submit a tax return.  Your chosen classification unit is grouped with other similar businesses so ACC can distribute the cost of injuries equally.

Liable Earnings

Your liable payroll is how much you pay your employees.  Holiday pay and overtime are all included in your liable payroll – but redundancy and retirement payments are not.  This figure will all depend on how much you pay your employees.

Experience Rating

This rating is based on the number of work-related injury claims your business has submitted.  If this has been added to your invoice, you’ll find it in the calculations section on the back of the invoice. 

Here’s a handy glossary of terms that may help you understand the finer details of employer levies:

Final Levy
Based on your total liable payroll for the year-end or wash up of the previous year using details received from Inland Revenue.

 Provisional Levy
An estimate invoice based on the payroll from the previous year with adjustments made for expectations such as salary increases.

Earners Levy
Much like tax you’ll deduct ACC Earners’ Levies from your employees’ wages as part of their PAYE payments.  This levy covers them for injuries that happen outside of work e.g.  Whilst playing sports or at home. 

Workers Levy 
The Workers Levy covers your employee if they injure themselves whilst at work.  For this type of scenario, you will need to pay them their first week of wages. 

Working Safer Levy
This levy is collected on behalf of WorkSafe New Zealand and is a fixed rate per $100 earned for every levy payer in New Zealand.    It goes towards supporting WorkSafe’s activities and injury prevention across the country.

What can we do to help?

  • Did you know, if you paid an employee’s first week of weekly compensation from a workplace accident, we can inform ACC so they can adjust the income used to calculate your levy which may reduce how much you need to pay.
  • You can also let us know whether your payroll will be increasing or decreasing significantly in the future. This ensures your not under or overpaying your levies unnecessarily. 
  • Ceased or ceasing payroll? Its important to let ACC know if you are discontinuing to employ staff. We can ensure this process is completed properly using the correct procedures and information from IR.
  • If your business activity has changed, we need to know. Ensuring your levies are calculated correctly is paramount as well as the risk of interfering with claims made by your employees in the future potentially.
  • Noticed your experience rating is high? This rating impacts your Work levy by considering historical claims and your health and safety performance.    ACC is here to support you by helping to explain in more details on how your experience rating affects your levy and having a conversation about your claims performance and how you might be able to improve it.

Got a burning ACC question?

Flick us an email or give our friendly team a call 07 889 7153.

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