Why you need to pay your super obligation on time!

So many businesses pay their super guarantee liability on the due date (or worse, days after). This could be due to cashflow, failing to plan ahead or simply just forgetting about it. However, you need to be aware that late payments (even by one day) could cause you miss out on tax deductions, unnecessary fees and even trigger a tax audit.

Tax Deductions

If your payments made after the due date you will not be able to claim the income tax deduction on superannuation expenses. This means your income tax bill will be substantially higher at EOFY.

Superannuation Guarantee Charge (SGC)

Business owners must lodge an SGC Statement to the ATO for every quarter they fail to pay their super contributions by the cut-off date. The ATO’s late payment charge includes the shortfall between the due amount and what was actually paid. To make matters worse, the ATO imposes an interest charge plus an administration fee (per employee, per quarter).

ATO Audits

Failure to meet minimum superannuation payments could trigger an Employer Obligation Audit. The ATO uses ‘data matching’ against other Government Departments to collect data about your business and ensure it is compliant with current legislation. It’s important to remember, if a business pays the owner a salary, they must also pay the minimum super for that salary.

We have listed the cut-off dates for each quarter in the table below.

We suggest setting up reminders in your calendar to ensure you don’t miss any deadlines. Be mindful that payments must be received by your nominated funds before the cut-off dates to qualify for tax deductions, so we suggest making payments before the 25th to allow sufficient time for processing.

Consolid8 provides an outsourced payroll service, which works out the exact super guarantee amounts to assist our clients to make payments before the quarterly cut off dates, call 1300 222 353