If you thought that the rules surrounding employee Super Guarantee Contribution payments were already pretty stringent, think again.

The government has announced a further bundle of reforms giving the ATO almost real-time access to the compulsory super payments you make for your employees.

According to the recent reform packages announced, the ATO will now be provided with additional funding to implement a Super Guarantee Taskforce to address employer non-compliance.  The changes are targeted toward unscrupulous employers who short-change employees that make salary-sacrifice contributions to their superannuation funds.

The attitional measures will require:

• superannuation funds to report contributions received more frequently, at least monthly, rather than quarterly. This will enable the ATO to identify non-compliance more quickly and take prompt action
• update payroll reporting through the rollout of Single Touch Payroll (STP). Employers with 20 or more employees will transition to STP from 1 July 2018 with smaller employers coming on board from 1 July 2019. This will reduce the regulatory burden on business and transform compliance by aligning payroll functions with regular reporting of taxation and superannuation obligations
• improve the effectiveness of the ATO’s recovery powers, including strengthening director penalty notices and use of security bonds for high-risk employers, to ensure that unpaid superannuation is better collected by the ATO and paid to employees’ super accounts, and
• give the ATO the ability to seek court-ordered penalties in the most egregious cases of non-payment, including employers who are repeatedly caught but fail to pay superannuation guarantee liabilities.