Industry superannuation funds group, Industry Super Australia (ISA) has again urged the Government to enable unions and superannuation funds to act as agents of the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to pursue employers who have not honoured their superannuation guarantee (SG) obligations.
ISA has used a submission to the Senate Economics Legislation to argue that the ATO needs help in pursuing unpaid SG obligations and that other agencies and parties should be empowered to do so.
“Other relevant agencies such as the Fair Work Ombudsman and third parties such as unions or superannuation funds should be given greater scope to work with the ATO to recover unpaid super,” the submission said.
“This could be achieved through permitting the ATO to delegate to an agent (such as a fund or service provider to them) to recover unpaid SG on application.
“Industry super funds engage a credit control and debt recovery provider (Industry Fund Service (IFS) Unpaid Super) to recover unpaid SG contributions for members of industry super funds,” the submission said. “IFS Unpaid Super has recovered more than $1.2 billion in SG entitlements over the past two decades.”
It said that research showed that SG non-compliance was more common in some industries than others, with low income workers in the construction, hospitality and cleaning industries most likely to miss out on superannuation.
“Some industry funds apply considerable resources to preventing and collecting unpaid SG. For example, Cbus, as the leading Industry Super Fund for the building, construction and allied industries, dedicates significant resources to a robust multi-stage arrears management process for chasing unpaid superannuation.”
In the 2019 financial year Cbus collected over $99.6 million in unpaid super for their members,” the submission said.
