Workforce Education News - Issue 9

 Workforce education news
 Issue 9 2010

Welcome

Welcome to the last edition of Workforce education news for 2010. Thanks for your readership this year – we hope you have found our 2010 editions useful.

If you have any feedback or suggestions on what to include in Workforce education news next year, we would like to hear from you.

We wish you and your families a safe and happy festive season and new year, and we look forward to bringing you more informative editions of Workforce education news in 2011.

Workforce education news is a free email newsletter we issue regularly to employers and professional associations. It contains updates about tax entitlements and obligations that may affect you, your employees and members of your association.

Feel free to pass the newsletter on to your employees and members as it contains information that may interest them.

To update or cancel your subscription, or to give us feedback about anything you have read or want to read in Workforce education news, email us at wensubscription@ato.gov.au

For employers

Paid Parental Leave Scheme starts soon

The Paid Parental Leave Scheme starts on 1 January 2011 and provides 18 weeks of government-funded pay to eligible employees. The rate of pay is equivalent to the national minimum wage. Full-time, part-time, casual, seasonal, contract and self-employed workers may be eligible.

Parents can lodge a claim up to three months in advance. The Family Assistance Office may contact you if one of your employees is eligible.

From 1 July 2011, you will be required to provide parental leave pay to your eligible employees (funds will be provided to you in advance). However, your role in the scheme can start earlier if you and your employee agree.

To get your business ready, register now at www.centrelink.gov.au and search for 'Centrelink business online services'.

Is your business tax-ready?

Is your business tax-ready? is a computer program we have developed to help you check whether your business is ready to meet its tax obligations if it has an annual turnover of less than $2 million.

The program will build a profile of your business using your answers to a series of questions. It then provides you with a report containing helpful information about what you can do to make sure your business is tax-ready.

Regardless of whether you're thinking about starting a business, operating a business, or you're selling or closing one down, Is your business tax-ready? will provide you with useful information.

Increased focus on super guarantee compliance

Regardless of the current economic situation, employers must continue to pay super for their eligible employees, casuals, part-timers, directors and contractors engaged wholly or principally for labour.

Our compliance activities are focused on helping employees make sure they receive their correct super entitlements.

Last financial year we received 18,664 complaints from employees and we reviewed the superannuation guarantee compliance of more than 20,000 employers.

While most employers are doing the right thing, we are taking firm action against those employers not willing to comply with their superannuation guarantee obligations. An example of this is our work with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in making sure employers meet their superannuation guarantee obligations before deregistration.

In 2010-11 we will continue our focus on ensuring employers meet their superannuation guarantee obligations. We will also continue our data-matching activities to identify employers at high risk of not meeting their obligations.

Super non-complying high risk industries

Despite the importance of super, some employers continue to not make super contributions for their eligible employees.

To help employers understand and meet their super obligations, we are running an education and compliance campaign targeting industries at high risk of not paying super to their workers.

The high-risk industries that we have identified are:

• accommodation – for example, housekeepers, receptionists and hotel staff
• accounting – for example, accountants and accounting clerks
• computer system design and related services – for example, software and applications programmers and ICT managers.

Over the next six months, we will provide targeted information to employers in these industries to help them understand their obligations under Australia's superannuation guarantee law. Once the education campaign is finished, we will undertake reviews of employers who continue to not comply.

Common mistakes made by employers include:

• paying insufficient super contributions
• missing the quarterly cut-off dates (28 October, 28 January, 28 April, 28 July)
• not understanding that in some circumstances they may have to pay super for contractors, even if the contractor quotes an Australian business number
• not keeping accurate records
• not passing an employee's tax file number on to their super fund.

Late paying your employees superannuation?

All super payments must be made by the quarterly deadlines. If you miss the superannuation guarantee quarterly deadline you must submit a Superannuation guarantee charge (SGC) statement – quarterly (NAT 9599) to us.

The quarterly deadlines for super guarantee payments are outlined in the following table.

Free tax seminars

If you are thinking of starting a new business or you are already a small business operator, come along to one or more of our free seminars to help you understand your tax, record keeping and super obligations.

Previous issues

To find previous issues of Workforce education news, visit our website at www.ato.gov.au/wen