Superannuation for your employees

Just a quick reminder for those who hire employees in your business, that the superannuation guarantee has increased from 9% to 9.25% from 1 July 2013. Your payroll software should make this adjustment automatically but it pays to check your first pay run for the year just in case.

Now that I got my main message across, here is a reminder of everything else related to your employee's superannuation.

• This 9.25% amount is called the superannuation guarantee charge (SGC). It is mandatory for all your employees, no matter if they are permanent or casual, who earn more than $450 a month but be aware that there are age and industry exceptions.

• SGC is also calculated on payments made to contractors if their invoice was primarily for their labour so they removed this benefit from converting your workforce to contractors.

• SGC is paid to a complying superannuation fund of your employee's choice which is usually indicated by their super choice form.

• At the minimum, SGC must be paid to all your employee's super funds before the 28th day after each quarter. That is 28 July, 28 October, 28 January, 28 April. However you can pay more frequently if it suits you.

The government, through various departments, focuses on employee's super quite a bit so it is an area that we need to get right. Please contact me if you have any questions about this or if you are looking at hiring your first employee soon.

Now here is something fun for everyone to do: Please visit the Tax Office's SuperSeeker website and see if any of the $18 billion in unclaimed money is yours. Yes, I said billions.