SG amnesty reunites Aussies with $600m

Around 393,000 employees will benefit from the government's superannuation guarantee amnesty, seeing a total of $588 million paid into their super funds or, where they are no longer working, to their bank accounts. 

According to current ATO statistics, around 17,000 (55 per cent) businesses lodged their application for the amnesty in the last week before the deadline, with 7,000 received on the last day, 7 September. 

In May 2018, then treasurer now Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, announced the SG amnesty initiative as a one-off opportunity for employers to disclose and pay previously unpaid SG charges, plus 10 per cent interest, without penalties. The amnesty covered the period dating back to the introduction of compulsory superannuation in July 1992, with employers participating needing to apply by 7 September 2020 to qualify. 

While the ATO continues to process those disclosures made in the last weeks of the amnesty period, interim results have been very encouraging with around $440 million already transferred to super funds, including $132 million in interest payments.

A further $33 million is subject to agreed payment plans, to help businesses doing it tough take advantage of the one off opportunity to make good and wipe the slate clean.

Assistant Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and Financial Technology Jane Hume opined that the initiative has been successful in reuniting Aussies with super they didn't know they were owed. 

“We know that in the past, calculating the super guarantee has been very complicated. The superannuation amnesty prompted honest businesses to take a look back through their records and check they’d done the right thing by their employees," said Ms Hume.

“The superannuation amnesty has been a very successful initiative, reuniting Australians with money that in many cases, they didn’t even know they were owed.”