25% of Small Businesses aren’t paying their super contributions – Are you one of them?

For any sized business, having employees requires you to abide by certain superannuation obligations. As a business owner, you’ll need to fulfill a particular series of steps during your employee onboarding process to ensure that you’re meeting your legal obligations.

All employees within Australia are protected by the superannuation guarantee legislation. However, understanding the provisions of superannuation can be a daunting undertaking, fulfilling your super obligations is complex & often poses significant complications for many business owners who aren’t accurately managing their super contributions. One in four Australian businesses currently are not making super contributions to their employees, subjecting them to hefty fines, large lump payments and potentially for the scrutiny of the tax department.

For this reason, most businesses employ a business accountant to ensure their superannuation is managed in alliance with the legal requirements of the Australian Tax Office. If you have not yet done so, Lawrence has a diverse team of specialized business accountants that are up-to-date with current superannuation requirements, ensuring your business finances are managed effectively. If you think that your business is included in the above statistic & you’re seeking more information on how to take charge of your super obligations, below are a few standard regulations you can follow to guarantee your super contributions are within the legal requirements.

Your Super Obligations to the Australian Tax Office

As a business owner & operator, it’s not just a case of ensuring you’ve met the super obligations of your employee, but you also need to ensure you’re fulfilling your super obligations in accordance with the Australian Tax Office Requirements. If you do not abide by the ATO rules & regulations, you will not only be denied a tax deduction for super paid late, yet may also be subject to late payment interest penalties.

• • Pay your super contributions to all eligible employees within the quarterly cut off date as stipulated by the ATO. The quarterly payment cut off dates for your super contribution are the same every year – 28th of January, 28th of April, 28th of July & 28th of October

• • Pay super in all instances unless you are a sole trader with no employees

• • As a business owner, you must use ‘SuperStream’ to make super contributions. Doing this correctly is complicated, and we recommend investing in a business accountant at Lawrence who can fulfill this service for you and meet the required standards for you.

• You must send all super data electronically & you must make your payments on the same day you send your super data.

Your Super Obligations to your Employee Include

Many business operators experience great confusion around the standard requirements and protocols of making super contributions to their employees. Here are some things you need to do to ensure you’re managing your super well:

• • You must identify new eligible employees that are protected by the Superannuation Guarantee Legislation

• • You must pay eligible employee’s a super contribution amount of at least 9.5 % of their total earnings

• • Ensure you’ve provided eligible employees a standard choice form to fill out upon their employment at your business.

• • Provide the option of a default super fund if the employee does not choose a fund.

• • You must act on your employees choice of super fund, and direct payments to their chosen fund.

• • Provide Employee’s tax file number to their super fund of choice within two weeks of receiving their TFN Declaration Form

• Pay super contributions to all eligible contractors within the stipulated time frame.

• Ensure up-to-date records are kept of all your super contributions and completed employee super choice forms.

How Can Lawrence Help?

Lawrence is a business accounting firm, with a diverse team of specialised business accountants in Perth that can provide accounting services to ensure we’re meeting all the legal standards and obligations on your behalf. Here are a few ways Lawrence can assist your business.

• • We can help you set up your super contributions for new and existing eligible employee’s

• • We can help you determine which employees you need to pay super to and calculate how much you need to pay them

• • We can ensure all super contributions are carried out with the SuperStream standards

• • We can help you ensure you’re paying on time, and budget to ensure your cash flow enables consistent & timely payments

• • We can offer sound financial and business advice on what you need to do in the instance that you have not met your super obligations

• We can ensure records of all super payments are current and up-to-date

If you are like many other business owners & operators, you may feel uncertain about your businesses super contributions to date. Perhaps you’ve been managing the contributions yourself, perhaps you’ve outsourced to a service provider who hasn’t managed your super contributions adequately, or perhaps you simply have not made any super contributions to date. We’re skilled business accountants with ample experience implementing strategies, and managing finances to enable businesses to move out of the red & get their finances back on track.

This article is general information only. It does not give business, accounting, taxation, financial planning or other professional advice or service. It does not consider your specific situation, objectives or needs and if personal advice is required, a detailed analysis of your particular circumstances would need to be sought. Please see our Privacy and Disclaimers page for further information.