Why we send super recovery notices
Government super contributions recovery notices are sent to funds to advise them of members who've received an overpayment from us. The notices contain details of super co-contribution or low income super tax offset (LISTO) payments to be recovered from members accounts.
We send you a super recovery notice when we've recalculated a member's entitlement. We reassess a member's entitlement when either:
- their fund has amended the contribution information previously reported to us, declaring that the contributions for the member have decreased
- the member's income tax return has been amended (which can be initiated by us or by the member).
For more information, see Government super contributions.
The recovery notice
The recovery notice details the overpaid amounts that must be returned to us. We send this notice electronically via SuperStream, along with the overpaid member list.
Recovery notices are generally issued to funds on the fourth weekend of each month.
Notifying members
We don’t advise your members at the time of the recovery. The recovery transaction is between us and you. You can decide how you wish to advise affected members. You may notify members in their annual super statement.
What you need to do
You must action recovery notices within 28 days of issue. You can find the due date in the electronic commerce interface (ECI) file.
If you can't return an overpaid co-contribution or LISTO amount, you must lodge a super payment variation advice (PVA). The PVA has codes for explaining why you can't action the recovery notice, including:
- member contributions have been paid or transferred out
- the member's contributions have been transferred from the member's account
- the member's contributions were in the course of being transferred from the member's account
- action to pay a pension or annuity has commenced
- member account has insufficient funds.
If the member account has funds, but the amount is insufficient to satisfy a recovery notice in full, you must return as much as you can. For example, if we advise we require the return of $1,000 and you only have $900 remaining in the member's account, you can't ignore the notice and you must return the $900 to us. You must also lodge a PVA for the missing $100 using the code that explains the shortfall.
As an overpayment of a government contribution is a debt to the Commonwealth, amounts not repaid to us within 28 days of the notice will incur the general interest charge.
For more information, see Super payment variation form and instructions.