Superannuation Contributions and Termination Payments Taxes Legislation Amendment Act 1997 (191 of 1997)

Schedule 4   Amendment of the Superannuation Contributions Tax (Assessment and Collection) Act 1997

42   After section 40

Insert:

40A Commissioner may collect money from person who owes money to a surcharge payer

(1) This section allows the Commissioner to collect money from a person who owes money to a surcharge payer who has a surcharge debt.

(2) The Commissioner may direct a person (the third party ) who owes, or may later owe, money (the available money ) to the surcharge payer to pay some or all of the available money to the Commissioner in accordance with the direction. The Commissioner must send a copy of the direction to the surcharge payer to the last place of address known to the Commissioner.

(3) The direction cannot require an amount to be paid to the Commissioner at a time before it becomes owing by the third party to the surcharge payer.

(4) The third party must comply with the direction, so far as the third party is able to do so.

Penalty: 20 penalty units.

Note 1: Chapter 2 of the Criminal Code sets out the general principles of criminal responsibility.

Note 2: The amount of a penalty unit is stated in section 4AA of the Crimes Act 1914. If a body corporate is convicted of an offence, subsection 4B(3) of that Act allows a court to impose a fine that is not greater than 5 times the maximum fine that could be imposed by the court on an individual convicted of the same offence.

(5) If a person is convicted of an offence in relation to a refusal or failure of the third party to comply with subsection (4), the court may (in addition to imposing a penalty on the convicted person) order the convicted person to pay to the Commissioner an amount up to the amount involved in the refusal or failure of the third party.

(6) Any payment made by the third party under this section is taken to have been made with the authority of the surcharge payer and of all other persons concerned, and the third party is indemnified for the payment.

(7) If the whole of the surcharge debt of the surcharge payer is discharged before any payment is made by the third party, the Commissioner must immediately give notice to the third party of that fact.

(8) The third party is taken to owe money to the surcharge payer if:

(a) money is due or accruing by the third party to the surcharge payer; or

(b) the third party holds money for or on account of the surcharge payer; or

(c) the third party holds money on account of some other person for payment to the surcharge payer; or

(d) the third party has authority from some other person to pay money to the surcharge payer;

whether or not the payment of the money to the surcharge payer is dependent on a pre-condition that has not been fulfilled.

(9) For the purposes of this section, money that has been paid by a person to a building society for the issue of withdrawable shares in the capital of the society, but has not been repaid, is taken to be:

(a) if the money is repayable on demand - money due by the building society to the person; or

(b) if the money is not repayable on demand - money that may become due by the building society to the person.

(10) In this section:

building society means a society registered or incorporated as a building society, co-operative housing society or other similar society under the law in force in a State or Territory.

person includes:

(a) the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory; and

(b) a public authority of the Commonwealth or of a State or Territory, whether or not the authority is incorporated.

surcharge debt means any of the following amounts payable by a person (whether or not the amount has become due for payment):

(a) superannuation contributions surcharge;

(b) advance instalment;

(c) interest;

(d) late payment penalty;

(e) a judgment debt, or costs, for surcharge, advance instalment, interest or late payment penalty;

(f) a fine, or costs, that a court has imposed for an offence against this Act;

(g) an amount that a court has ordered the person to pay to the Commissioner, following conviction of the person for an offence against this Act.

surcharge payer means a person who is liable to pay the superannuation contributions surcharge on a member’s surchargeable contributions for a financial year.