Funds must report to us the contributions and reportable allocations from reserves that are made to all your super accounts in a financial year.
If you close your first home saver account (FHSA) and choose to contribute the balance to a super fund, or your spouse or ex-spouse contributes an amount to your super from their FHSA because of a family law obligation, your FHSA provider must report the transfer to us.
We use these reports, information from your income tax return and our data about any FHSA government contribution we have paid you to work out if you have exceeded a super contributions cap.
If we find that you have exceeded a super contributions cap, we will issue you an excess contributions tax (ECT) assessment.
The cap amount, and how much extra tax you pay once you exceed it, depends on whether the contributions are:
- concessional
- non-concessional.
Super funds
When a fund must report contributions information to us depends on what sort of fund they are.
APRA regulated funds
Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) regulated funds must report contributions and allocations by 31 October but only if they received contributions for you in the financial year.
APRA regulated funds complete a Member contributions statement (MCS) (NAT 71334) to report to us.
Tax Office regulated funds (self-managed super funds)
A self-managed super fund (SMSF) must make a report for all your accounts each financial year, even if it has not received any contributions or made any allocations for you in that year.
SMSFs report contributions and allocations in the Self managed superannuation fund annual return (SAR). The SAR includes the fund's regulatory return and income tax return and must be lodged when the fund's income tax return is due. This may be any time from 31 October to 5 June of the financial year after the contributions are received.
FHSA providers
FHSA providers must report FHSA balances they transfer to a super fund by 31 October of the next financial year.
As we calculate your contributions on the basis of these reports, we may not be aware that you have exceeded a super contributions cap until all the funds you belong to have reported. This may not be until the end of the next financial year.
Alternatively, we may issue you with an ECT assessment on the basis of information reported by a fund that reports early - for example, an APRA regulated fund. We may then raise an amended assessment when another of your funds, such as your SMSF, reports later in the year.
Example 1
Rosalita is a member of an APRA regulated fund and a member of an SMSF with her husband. During the financial year, the only contributions for Rosalita were employer contributions into the APRA regulated fund.
The APRA regulated fund must report the contributions by 31 October. Even though Rosalita's SMSF account did not receive any contributions for the financial year, her SMSF must report nil contributions for her in the SAR when its income tax return is due. In Rosalita's SMSF's case, this is 15 May.
Rollovers
If you rollover an amount from one super fund to another, the paying fund must report in a Rollover benefits statement any contributions it has received so far in the financial year which are included in the rollover. It must give the Rollover benefits statement to the payee fund. Both APRA regulated funds and SMSFs use this form.
The paying fund must also send a copy of this statement to you.
The payee fund will report in its MCS or SAR the contributions and allocations rolled over to it. The paying fund must only report contributions it received which were not rolled over.
Example 2
Janey's employer contributions are being made to her employer's default super fund, ABC. Janey's employer has contributed $1,400 for her up to 31 January. On this day, Janey retires and rolls over her account balance with ABC to the ZYX fund.
When the requested amount is rolled over, the ABC fund will give a Rollover benefits statement to the ZYX fund and a copy to Janey. In this example, the ABC fund would report on the Rollover benefits statement that the amount rolled over included $1,400 of employer contributions.
After the end of the financial year, the ZYX fund will report $1,400 as Janey's employer contributions for the year, even though the ZYX fund did not receive this amount directly from the employer.
Last Modified: Thursday, 14 June 2012