The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is proposing a letter campaign for employers that have previously not met their superannuation guarantee obligations to remind them of their obligations. The letter will go to 2,500 employers who the ATO have identified as having paid some or all of their SG payments late during 2018-19 and another 4,000 employers will be receiving due-date reminder letters.
Following the introduction of Single Touch Payroll (STP), the ATO has extensive data. Speaking at a conference, ATO Deputy Commissioner of Superannuation and Employer Obligations James O’Halloran said:
“We now have an unprecedented level of ‘visibility’ of super information at the account and transaction level and we’re increasingly using this capability.
We have recently completed an examination of SG contributions of some 75 million payment transactions for quarters one, two and three of 2018–19 for some 400,000 employers. We’re currently examining the payment transactions and patterns for quarter four of 2018–19. As you would know, this was only an aspiration few years ago.
From this data, we can already see that between 90% and 92% of contribution transactions by volume were paid on time and that between 85% and 90% of the transactions by dollar value were paid on time.
We’re now starting to actively use the data to warn employers who appear not to be paying the required SG on time, in full or at all, that they should change their behaviour.”
The ATO will also use the PAYG withholding data to ensure PAYG is paid accurately and on time. The data will allow the ATO to raise accurate debts for PAYG if BAS or IAS lodgements are late and commencing recovery. For this reason, it is important that STP data provided to the ATO is accurate.
For small employers, STP compulsory reporting only commenced on 30 September 2019. Thus, the SG data the ATO is referring to is from larger employers. However, given their real time access to data, it won’t be long before small businesses will be caught.
Learn more about the ATO’s STP data usage from Effective PD’s webinar. This webinar will also cover the new superannuation guarantee opt out form for high income earners and a decision impact statement about withdrawal of super.
Subscribe to Effective PD’s webinar. Visit www.effectivepd.com.au. Effective PD offers an innovative way for busy accountants to be on top of their game with continuing professional development in a brief, flexible and easy way.
