Firstly, for the 2009/2010 financial year and future years, employers are required to report to the Tax Office as part of their payment summary reporting all reportable employer super contributions (RESC) made to employees. Briefly, RESC are super contributions an employer makes for an employee where all of the following apply:
The employee influenced the rate or amount of super the employer contributed for them
The contributions are additional to the compulsory contributions an employer must make under any of the following:
- SG law
- An industrial agreement
- The trust deed or governing rules of a super fund, or
- A federal, state or territory law.
This includes salary sacrifice contributions to superannuation.
As an employer, you must ensure you are retaining sufficient records to prove whether or not the employee influenced the super contributions you made on their behalf. Such records may include:
How the RESC were calculated
How the employee's ordinary time earnings (OTE) were calculated
Copies of employer policies relevant to the calculation of RESC
Employment instruments (awards, individual contracts etc)
Salary sacrifice agreements.
Once more detail on RESC comes to light HR Services will be able to elabotrate further on any implications it may have.
Secondly, to work out SG amounts payable to employees, you should be using Superannuation Guarantee Ruling (SGR) 2009/2 which is the latest Tax Office ruling on Ordinary Time Earnings (OTE). OTE is the amount on which an employer must calculate their SG liability for each employee.
To locate the ruling, copy and paste this link into your browser: http://law.ato.gov.au/atolaw/view.htm?dbwidetocone=06%3AATO%20Rulings%20and%20Determinations%20(Including%20GST%20Bulletins)%3ABy%20Type%3ARulings%3ASuperannuation%20Guarantee%3A2009%3A%2304910020000%23SGR%202009%2F2%20-%20Superannuation%20guarantee%26c%20meaning%20of%20the%20terms%20'ordinary%20time%20earnings'%20and%20'...%3B
