The Australian Government have recently re-introduced a superannuation guarantee amnesty period, in which employers with undisclosed information about their employee’s superannuation can come forward with this information to avoid associated penalties. The bill for this movement was raised on 18 September 2019, with the Amnesty period beginning on 24 May 2018 and ending 6 months after the legislation receives Royal Assent.

To qualify, the discloser must:

• Contain information that has not previously been disclosed to the ATO
• Contain information that relates to March 2018 and earlier quarters
• Be made in the approved format, including a super guarantee charge statement
• Be made before the ATO advises of an audit of SGC obligations

Benefits of the amnesty

The amnesty will provide the discloser with a number of advantages that they would not have had ordinarily. These include:

• Deductibility of shortfall interest paid
• Deductibility of contributions offset against superannuation guarantee charge
• Admin component of super payments waived – this is $20 per employee per quarter
• Part 7 penalties waived
  • Part 7 penalties are administered where the employer fails to provide SGC statements or information relevant to assessing the SGC liabilities.
  • This can result in a penalty being applied to the employer totaling to equal or double the super guarantee charge payable by the employer.

Please note that nominal interest still applies, and that the amnesty conditions will fail if payment is not made by the end of the amnesty period, or a payment arrangement is not in place by this time.

If you would like some assistance with bringing your super obligations up to date, please contact our team.