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Government pushed on major gateway, payments reform

Regulation

One bookkeeping industry body is set to push the government to apply a ‘common sense legal solution’ to address the issue of bounced payments for employers using SuperStream gateways.

By Jotham Lian 9 minute read

Institute of Certified Bookkeepers executive director Matthew Addison says employers are unfairly penalised when a super payment via SuperStream gateways “bounces” after a period of time, despite the bookkeeper or employer meeting their obligations on time.

“This is where the superfund decides to reject a payment, normally after a significant period of time, in a process that is out of the control or influence of the employer, yet technically the employer can no longer claim a tax deduction and is subject to the SG charge and penalties,” said Mr Addison.

“Neither the employer nor the bookkeeper has the ability to make them compliant because the SuperStream gateway has held on to the money, has held on to the resource, returned it after the tax deduction date and therefore an employer is penalised due to inefficiency of the SuperStream gateways.”

Instead, Mr Addison believes the government should legislate to recognise that an employer has met their obligations once they have paid to a SuperStream gateway.

“A common sense legal solution would be for the law to recognise the role of SuperStream gateways formally by saying that once an employer has paid to a registered SuperStream gateway, then they have met their obligations,” he said.

“The current law reads that they haven’t met their obligation until the fund is received into the member’s account of the super fund.

“There are far too many people involved after the employer has made the payment: Payment gateway, SuperStream gateway, the fund itself having to process it into the member’s fund, and it is all out of control of the employer.”

Jotham Lian

Jotham Lian

AUTHOR

Jotham Lian is the editor of Accountants Daily, the leading source of breaking news, analysis and insight for Australian accounting professionals.

Before joining the team in 2017, Jotham wrote for a range of national mastheads including the Sydney Morning Herald, and Channel NewsAsia.

You can email Jotham at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

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