Superannuation Changes

Superannuation changes came into place in November and with even more changes to come later in the year, are you up to date on these changes? What do they mean for your business and what to do to prepare for what is to come. 

Super Stapling

Employers can no longer ‘automatically’ add new staff to their company default superannuation fund.

For each new employee that commences with an Employer from Nov 2021, if they do not provide a completed super choice form, you need to obtain their super details from the ATO portal. This is not optional, with the Superannuation legislation updated to make this process enforceable.

There is a process available on the ATO portal for employers to do this. Click here to view this.

For Employers to make a fund request for their new employee, they will need their full name, date of birth, address and tax file number. The requests will take about 5-10 minutes to come back.

The stapled fund information supplied will identify where the employer MUST pay the super for that employee into. The employer CANNOT decide where to pay it into for new employees.

This new process does not change any superannuation arrangements already in place for existing employees.

Plus 1 Hint – in order to facilitate a faster process, we would encourage all Employers to provide new employees with a super choice form, this will capture the required information at the time of commencing employment and remove the need to obtain the super fund details from the ATO.
For further information, read this reference guide. 

Superannuation rate rise

Employers should be aware of and planning for the slated superannuation increase to 10.5% from 1st July 2022 and a further 0.5% each year till it gets to 12% in 2025. A labour govt is not likely to change this.

Superannuation threshold

Employers would be aware that their employees normally need to earn more than $450 per month in order for superannuation to be payable. This would primarily impact casual & part-time workers on low income or low hours per week.

It is currently scheduled, for the removal of the monthly earning threshold as of July 1st 2022.

Under the changes, all staff would have super payable at the applicable rate regardless of how much they earn.

This will not impact the current requirements for staff under 18 years of age and the specific requirements that apply for them.