No TFN supplied – additional income tax

Receiving a member's TFN

When a member gives their tax file number (TFN) to their employer, the employer must pass it on to you.

If you don’t have a member's TFN, you may be liable for additional income tax of 32%. This tax is on top of the 15% tax you already paid on assessable contributions such as:

• contributions made by an employer on behalf of a member, including salary sacrifice contributions
• any part of a transfer from a foreign super fund that is assessable income of the fund.

For more information, see Fund income tax return instructions 2025.

Applying extra tax

Complying fund

If your member hasn't quoted their TFN by the end of your income year, extra tax may apply to their contributions. This extra tax is on top of the usual 15% tax on contributions.

Accounts opened before 1 July 2007

• If the member's total contributions for the year are more than $1,000, you'll pay an extra 32% tax on all of the contributions for the year, including the first $1,000.
• If the member's total contributions for the year are $1,000 or less, then you won't pay any extra tax.

Accounts opened on or after 1 July 2007

You'll pay an extra 32% tax on all the member's contributions for the year, regardless of the amount.

Non-complying fund

The same rules apply to non-complying funds as to complying funds, but the extra tax rate is 2% instead of 32%.

PAYG instalment calculations

This extra tax doesn't affect your pay as you go (PAYG) instalment calculations. When calculating your PAYG instalments, don't include your:

• no-TFN-quoted contributions income
• tax offset for no-TFN-quoted contributions income.

We generally calculate instalment rates at 15% for complying funds and 45% for non-complying funds. If your circumstances mean you pay more or less than your expected income tax liability for the relevant income year, you can vary your instalments. For example, you may have non-arm's length income that's taxed at an additional 30% on top of the 15% rate of tax for assessable contributions.

Reporting your liability

You work out your liability for the additional tax at the end of the income year in which the contributions are made. Include contributions that are assessable income as no-TFN contributions income in your fund income tax return.

Retirement savings account (RSA) providers need to calculate these amounts and report them at the Calculation statement section of the company tax return.

Claiming back additional tax

If you paid extra tax because a member did not quote their TFN, you may be able to claim it back. You claim this as a no-TFN tax offset in your income tax return in the year in which the member first quotes their TFN to you. The offset equals the extra tax you paid on the member's contributions from earlier years. You can only claim the extra tax paid from the 3 income years before you received the TFN.

The tax offset can only be claimed for extra tax paid on contributions income of an earlier year. You cannot pay extra tax for a contribution and claim a tax offset for that same contribution in the same income year.

If you would like to get the benefit of this offset sooner, you can adjust your PAYG instalments to reflect the fact that you will be entitled to the offset in your next income tax return.

If you have debited the amount of additional tax from your member, you should refund this money to their account.

If a member leaves

The additional tax on no-TFN contributions applies if a member has not quoted their TFN by the end of the income year you accepted the contributions. This is even if the member leaves the fund in that year.

If the member has transferred their super to another fund, the original fund (not the new fund) must pay the tax. If the former member quotes their TFN to their former fund within 3 years of the end of the income year in which the no-TFN contributions were made, the former fund can claim a tax offset.

Interest on no-TFN tax offset

You may be entitled to interest if all these conditions are met:

• The member gave their TFN to their employer before the end of an income year.
• The employer didn't pass on the TFN to you when making contributions for that member.
• Those contributions became part of your no-TFN contributions income, and you paid extra tax on them.
• The member later quotes their TFN to you, creating an entitlement to a no-TFN tax offset.
• The no-TFN tax offset was applied against your income tax assessment.

You must self-assess any interest on no-TFN tax offset in the current income year.

There is a label on the fund income tax return where you show the amount of interest on no-TFN tax offset claimed in the calculation statement.

RSAs need to calculate these amounts and report them at the calculations statement of the company income tax return.

Evidence required to claim interest

You must hold evidence to support a claim for interest on no-TFN tax offset.

First, ask the member to provide a copy of the TFN declaration that they lodged with the employer who did not pass their TFN on to you.

If the member can't provide a copy of the TFN declaration, they can give you a statement that states:

• the name of the employer
• that the member gave the employer authority to pass their TFN on to you.

You should be able to provide us with evidence of the statement and show that it was made by the member. For example, by showing that an emailed statement came from the member's email address.

Oral statement

If you receive an oral statement by phone:

• use proof of identity procedures
• provide the option of giving you a copy of their TFN declaration, if they have one.

If the member doesn't have a copy of their TFN declaration, you can obtain a statement from them confirming they authorised their employer to pass on the TFN and keep a record as evidence.

Calculating interest

The rate used in calculating the interest is set by law and is reviewed every quarter.

(A ÷ B) × C × (D ÷ 100)

Where:

• A is the number of days in the period you are entitled to interest
• B is the number of days in the year (365 for non-leap years and 366 for leap years)
• C is the amount of interest-bearing tax
• D is the interest rate for the period.

The interest-bearing tax is the amount of tax payable for the no-TFN-quoted contributions income that counted towards the tax offset.

If a payment of interest extends over 2 or more interest rate periods, you need to calculate a separate interest entitlement for the number of days within each different rate period that the overpayment attracts interest.

Period of interest

Interest is payable to you for the period that:

• starts on the later of the following days
  • the day the amount of interest-bearing tax was paid
  • the day the amount of interest-bearing tax was required to be paid
• ends on the day the assessment of the no-TFN tax offset is made.

All super and RSA providers are subject to a 'full' self-assessment system under which they self-assess the amount of tax they must pay. The assessment is deemed to be made on the day you lodge your income tax return.

Defined benefit funds

If you are a defined benefit fund, you are required to pay no-TFN contribution income tax.

If you have members who accrue benefits for the income year and they have not quoted their TFN, we will accept a reasonable method of calculating the amount of the no-TFN contributions income for the year.

Contributions income attributable to particular members, such as salary sacrifice contributions, can be determined to be no-TFN contributions income without difficulty. However, contributions that are not attributable to a particular member must be apportioned across all members of the fund on a reasonable basis.

Without limiting acceptable methods, you could apportion the contributions income by basing it on the super salaries of the members who have accrued benefits in the income year.

Another acceptable method of apportionment would be using the amount of the members' notional tax contributions that is required to be calculated for defined benefit members for the purpose of the excess contributions tax.