Heads –up!
For everyone who employs staff, there are legislative requirements to make mandatory super contributions.
This has been in place for many years:
https://www.ato.gov.au/calculators-and-tools/super-guarantee-contributions/
However, with the advent of “Superstream” the ATO is indirectly developing a system where they should be more easily able to track that employers have made the correct value of contribution for each employee, and that it has been made on or before the due date.
Accordingly it is more important than ever to ensure your contributions are made on time, as the ATO will be well positioned to police the compliance requirements.
SuperStream is a method by which employers make superannuation contributions for their employees electronically. That doesn’t mean by EFT, but rather, in the case of SMSF’s, by the fund registering with an SMSF messaging provider and obtaining an electronic service address (ESA) and passing that on to the employer. An ESA provides a secure sending point for an employer and easy online retrieval point for the SMSF member. Note that contributions to SMSF’s by related party employers do not fall under the SuperStream rules.
For small employers i.e. those with 19 or fewer employees, the option to use SuperStream started on 1 July 2015. That option runs until 1 July 2016 at which time the new system becomes mandatory. It is our view that, once established, SuperStream makes the task of making superannuation contributions for employees a much more streamlined process and we would therefore encourage all small employers, if they have not already done so, to make arrangements to start sooner rather than later.