COVID-19 response: Level three prompts extension of wage subsidy

Finance Minister Grant Robertson has confirmed that the wage subsidy scheme will be further extended  nationwide for the period that Auckland is at COVID-19 Alert Level 3. The criteria for the latest extension to the wage subsidy extension are:

• a business must have had, or is predicting to have, a revenue drop due to COVID-19 of at least 40 percent; and
• the revenue drop applies for any consecutive period of at least 14 days within 12 August and 10 September compared to last year.

The nationwide scope of the scheme recognises the impact on the rest of the economy that the Auckland Level 3 lockdown will have. MSD has advised that applications for the latest extension of the wage subsidy scheme will be open by the end of the week (ie Friday 21 August 2020).

Minister Robertson also announced:

• the Government has removed the revenue-drop test for the COVID-19 Leave Support Scheme

the mortgage deferral scheme is also being extended from its current end-date of 27 September, to 31 March 2021, with further details to be made available by the Reserve Bank and the retail banks.

Source document: beehive.govt.nz

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