A key home-building lobby group, the Housing Industry Association (HIA), has backed Government legislation implementing a 12-month amnesty allowing employers to make good unpaid superannuation guarantee (SG) payments.
The HIA has used a submission to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee reviewing the Government’s bill to point out the need for the amnesty in circumstances where the penalties for non-payment of the SG are sufficient to discourage employers from admitting their fault.
“HIA does not support employers or businesses deliberately avoiding their superannuation obligations and failing to pay their superannuation entitlements, however, it is clear that the consequences for the non-payment of superannuation under the current laws are significant,” the submission said.
“In HIA’s view the proposed amnesty would provide relief to some employers from largely unjustified additional administrative costs and penalties,” it said.
The submission said the HIA believed that the current administrative arrangements surrounding the SG did not assist in ensuring timely payment of contributions and did not encourage employers to rectify missed contributions.
It said that, similar to the Superannuation Guarantee Cross-Agency Working Group, it believed that the current SG charge and penalty regime actually prevented employers from coming forward and “could have the effect of harshly penalising ‘honest employers’ who make an inadvertent mistake, thereby discouraging reporting and rectification of underpayment”.
Why restrict the amnesty to super? Why restrict the amnesty to employees so they are the only ones that lose their entitlements? Why not have a general amnesty so for any person or business that has a debt doesn’t have to pay (sic)!