You can also consider paying monthly if that suits your payment cycle or bookkeeping better. You have to pay the SG to eligible employees (generally those aged over 18 who earn over $450 a month). Paying into a superannuation fund is mandatory by Australian labour laws, and it requires employers to contribute when the salary paid on any given month for earnings of $450 or more. This means that it is ultimately the ATO’s responsibility to collect unpaid superannuation on behalf of employees. Hiring someone as a contractor who should be an employee is known as sham contracting and carries heavy penalties. Pay superannuation for each of your employees at least quarterly, before the cut off date. The superannuation guarantee (SG) is the minimum percentage of an employees’ wages paid into their super – and it’s a legal requirement. Testing if Someone is a Contractor or Employee. As an employer, if you don’t pay the required SG contributions into your employees’ super accounts by the quarterly due date, you may have to pay a Superannuation Guarantee Charge (SGC) to the ATO. The superannuation guarantee and super on overtime and bonuses. As an employer, you must pay your employees at the correct rate, as well as any entitlements they are eligible for. If you don’t pay your employees’ superannuation when you’re supposed to, you could face some significant penalties. AccountRight calculates the amount of superannuation you need to pay on behalf of your employees, but on occasions the figure calculated might appear to be wrong. A pension (/ ˈ p ɛ n ʃ ə n /, from Latin pensiō, "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments. Therefore, you must first decide if a person you hire is an employee or a contractor. It is also referred to as a company pension plan . The first rule is that you must pay superannuation for anyone who is an employee. The cut off dates are 28 days after the end of each quarter, so usually the 28th of January, April, July, and October. The fund covers most employees, but there are guidelines that determine who is eligible to participate. The SGC includes all the SG amounts owing to an employee… Superannuation: A superannuation is an organizational pension program created by a company for the benefit of its employees. U.S. Department of Labor: 200 Constitution Ave NW Washington, DC 20210 1-866-487-2365 TTY 1-877-889-5627 The wages and entitlements your employee is eligible for can depend on: age; industry; qualifications; work duties and responsibilities; Minimum wage. 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