The transition period for the new Stapled Super Fund rules introduced last year, ended on 31 October 2022. Penalties may now apply to businesses not meeting these employer obligations.

When hiring staff, if your new employee is eligible to make a choice of super fund, you will need to give them a Standard Super Choice Form as part of your employee onboarding process. Provided that you receive a valid choice form in return, you have the details to proceed with the Super Guarantee (SG) contributions and it is business as usual.

The rules introduced stipulate that from 1 November 2021, if your employee does not provide you with their super fund details, you can no longer decide to make the contribution to your employer nominated/ default fund. Instead, you must follow these new additional steps:

1. Ask the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) if the employee has an existing super account that can be used to receive the super payments (referred to as a Stapled Super Fund), and either:

• Pay the SG contributions to the super account provided by the ATO, or
• Pay the SG contributions to the employer’s default fund, if the ATO confirms that the employee does not have a Stapled Super Fund.

The Stapled Super Fund follows the employee to their next job and is based on information that the ATO holds on their super accounts:

• If an employee has only one super account, that account will be linked to them.
• If an employee has multiple existing super accounts, the ATO will apply a set of rules to determine which of these will be the employee’s Stapled Super Fund. These rules include super balances, most recent contributions, etc.

The employee cannot request a change of their Stapled Super Fund. If the employee wants the contributions to be paid to a specific account, then it is important that they complete the Standard Super Choice Form.

As an employer, you can request Stapled Super Fund details through the ATO Portal, under the Employees tab, by selecting ‘Employee super accounts’. You will need to provide the following information:

• Employee’s first and last name
• Tax File number
• Date of birth
• Address

You can also request us to attend to the above through our ATO Portal, if you don’t have one set up for your business.

Please note that you will need to have established an employment relationship with your employee prior to requesting their Stapled Super Fund details. This can be accomplished by submitting a Tax File Number declaration with the ATO, or by processing a Single Touch Payroll (STP) payment to the employee.

You can access the ATO guide for employers at Stapled Super Fund – Reference Guide for Employer.

The result should be available promptly after submitting the request on the portal and the ATO will also issue a letter confirming the request outcome.

We take the opportunity to remind you that Super Guarantee contributions for the December 2022 quarter (1 October 2022 – 31 December 2022) are due on 28 January 2023. If you require any assistance obtaining the Stapled Super Fund details for one of your employees, we are here to help.

Feel free to Contact Us or call 0416 919 036 if you would like any further advice in this area.