Business Super Solutions

If your employee earns $450 or more (before tax) in a calendar month, you are required to pay them super in addition to their wages. Eligible workers include:

• full-time, part-time and casual staff,
• temporary residents such as backpackers,
• family members (if they are eligible),
• company directors,
• those already receiving a pension, and
• in some circumstances, contractors.

More detailed information is available on the Working out if you have to pay super page of the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) website. You may also wish to use our Business Super Profile tool to check if you are on track with your super obligations.

You may not have to pay su­per for em­ploy­ees who are:

• aged 18 or over and earn less than $450 be­fore tax in a cal­en­dar month (you need to pay SG for any month the em­ployee earns $450 or more)
• un­der 18 and work­ing 30 hours or less per week
• non-res­i­dents com­plet­ing work out­side of Aus­tralia
• on paid parental leave
• re­ceiv­ing pay­ments un­der the Com­mu­nity De­vel­op­ment Em­ploy­ment Pro­gram.

For more in­for­ma­tion on which em­ploy­ees you need to pay su­per for, visit the ATO web­site.

Your employees can generally choose their own super fund for their Super Guarantee (SG) contributions to be paid into.

If you don’t meet your SG oblig­a­tions you will be re­quired to lodge a Su­per­an­nu­a­tion guar­an­tee charge state­ment – quar­terly form and pay a Su­per­an­nu­a­tion Guar­an­tee Charge (SGC) to the ATO.  You may also lose the tax de­duc­tions you would usu­ally be able to claim for mak­ing su­per con­tri­bu­tions.

You will gen­er­ally have to pay the SGC if you:

• don’t pay enough SG for your em­ployee
• don’t pay SG con­tri­bu­tions by the quar­terly cut-off date
• don’t pay SG to your em­ploy­ee’s cho­sen su­per fund.

If you have paid SG con­tri­bu­tions for your em­ploy­ees af­ter the cut-off date you may be able to use the late pay­ment as an off­set to re­duce the amount of SGC you have to pay.

For more in­for­ma­tion about your SG oblig­a­tions, visit ato.gov.au and search ‘em­ploy­ers su­per’.

Generally, the super you pay staff must be at least 10% of their ‘ordinary time earnings’ (which include commissions, allowances and bonuses). Set by the Government, this amount is called the ‘Super Guarantee’.

You can pay staff a higher percentage as part of their salary package if you wish, but there are limits to how much they can receive before they are required to pay higher tax on their contributions.

The ATO has a handy Super Guarantee Contributions Calculator that may help you work out what to pay.

Some of the factors to compare when selecting a default super fund include.

• Investment performance: Performance over the past five to ten years
• Fees: Administration, investment, advice, switching and buy/sell spread
• Insurance: Cover offered by the fund and the cost
• Investment options
• Extra services available from the fund: Such as financial advice, educational seminars, and local representatives.

You can pay super monthly – and some super funds require this frequency. But the minimum frequency is quarterly, and your business may face penalties if you miss these cut-off dates.

Your staff members can choose to have super contributions paid into a superannuation fund that they nominate or into a superannuation fund that you nominate (if they can’t or don’t choose their own fund). This is known as an ‘employer-nominated fund’ and must comply with certain requirements under the Government’s ‘MySuper’ initiative.

MySuper products – which include our own BT Super fund – are intended to be simple, low cost, and easy to compare. You can register for BT Super online in about five minutes.

Once you have chosen an employer-nominated fund, you should include its details in the ‘Standard Choice form’ you are required to give your employees.

The government requires you to send contribution payments and data electronically in a standard format called ‘SuperStream’. Your employer-nominated fund may offer an online portal or ‘super clearing house’ to comply with this requirement, and some payroll systems (such as MYOB and Xero) incorporate the service.

If in any doubt about how to comply with your super obligations and/or make payments, visit the Employers section of the ATO’s SuperStream web pages.

There are three different ways to make contributions through Quicksuper:

1. Contribute using an online e-form - This option suits employers making contributions for less than 40 members. Simply enter the contribution amounts in the screen next to the name of your employee.
2. Contribute using the standard QuickSuper file - This option is best suited if you have more than 40 employees that are members of your BT Super plan as you can upload payment details from your existing systems into a spreadsheet.
3. Use your own payroll file - If you have your own payroll system, you can use it to upload contributions. You will need to register your payroll file with QuickSuper if you have not previously done so, or if your payroll file has changed since you last registered it with QuickSuper.

Generally, you may claim a 100% tax deduction for super contributions made on behalf of your employees.