Per Business Insider: "The federal........>

AUSTRALIA: Per Business Insider: "The federal government on Friday revealed that

an error saw it incorrectly cost its flagship JobKeeper program at almost double

what it will actually cost. It had previously claimed the wage subsidy was

supporting 6.5 million Australians but has now revised that figure down to just

3.5 million, according to a statement from Treasury. "The enrolment forms

completed by 910,055 businesses who have self-assessed as eligible under the

scheme had indicated that this program would cover around 6.5 million eligible

employees. The ATO's review of these forms has found that around 1,000 of those

businesses appear to have made significant errors when reporting the estimate of

eligible employees on their enrolment form," Treasury said. According to its

update, the most common mistake saw more than 500 businesses with just a single

employee report they had 1,5000 employees instead in their application,

mistaking it for the fortnightly JobKeeper subsidy they expected to receive. It

means that rather than costing the taxpayer $130 billion as the government

originally reported, the price tag of the six-month program will be $70 billion

- a little over half."