Super guarantee – annual employer compliance results

This data provides annual statistics for ATO compliance activities and employer actions to meet their SG obligations.

On this page

• Overview
• Highlights of the 2021-22 year
• Employers overview
• Employee notifications
• ATO initiated compliance activities
• Voluntary disclosures
• Super guarantee debt

Overview

We have released our first annual statistical results for employer obligations relating to superannuation guarantee (SG) compliance and obligations.

These results provide key statistics and analysis for SG employer obligations, including ATO compliance actions undertaken for the 2021-22 financial year.

You can download a printable version in portable document format: Link to infographicThis link will download a file.

Definitions

Definitions of terms we use when explaining our compliance activities and employer SG obligations.

• Super guarantee – Super guarantee (SG) is the minimum amount you must pay to avoid the super guarantee charge. Super guarantee is currently 10.5% of an employee’s ordinary time earnings.
• Super guarantee charge – The super guarantee charge (SGC) applies when you don’t pay the minimum amount of super guarantee (SG) for your eligible employees to the correct fund by the due date.
• Part 7 penalties – You are liable for a Part 7 penalty if you lodge your SGC statement late, or fail to provide a statement or information when requested during an audit.

Highlights of the 2021–22 year

Highlights of the 2021–22 financial year include the following.

• Employers are paying more than 94% of the SG they are required to, without intervention from us.
• A total of $1,059 million in superannuation guarantee charge (SGC) liabilities was raised through SG voluntary disclosures and ATO compliance action. This includes the total amount of $1,125m raised from ATO compliance actions and employer disclosures of unpaid super, less adjustments for amendments and objections.
• The ATO distributed $645.4 million of super entitlements to individuals or super fund accounts. This includes SG amounts collected for liabilities raised arising from employee complaints, ATO initiated compliance activities and employer voluntary disclosures.
• The ATO finalised approximately 17,300 SG cases, resulting in around $550 million SGC liabilities and $215 million in part 7 penalties raised.
  • 15,200 of those reviews were because of employee notification complaints raising $495 million in SGC liabilities.
  • 2,100 of those reviews were because of other ATO initiated reviews raising $55 million in SGC liabilities.
   
• Around 30,800 employers came forward to make a voluntary disclosure of unpaid super, resulting in around $360 million in SGC liabilities being raised.

Employers overview

Approximately 891,000 employers are reporting super obligations through Single Touch Payroll, employing approximately 13.6 million employees.

Employee complaints of unpaid super

The ATO received 19,600 employee complaints of unpaid super. Not all employee complaints received require action to be undertaken.

Some are resolved through other ATO actions including:

• complaints where super entitlements have been met and the employee withdraws their compliant
• the ATO has already raised an assessment against the employer for late or unpaid superannuation
• the employer has already lodged an SGC statement to correct their obligations, or
• duplicate notifications received from employees added to an existing case for an employer.

ATO initiated cases for unpaid super

Employer disclosures of unpaid super

Super guarantee charge debt

• Total collectable debt on our books as of 30 June 2022 is $1,867 million.
• $65 million SGC debt subject to objection or appeal.
• $1,167 million SGC debt subject to insolvency.

Of this:

• $229 million collectable debt is part of payment plans.
• $712 million SGC debt is less than 12 months old.