Can anyone help please? My husband has been in a job since last July. His wage slips say that his employer is paying his super, but when we received a statement recently, nothing had been paid in. He was with the same super company with a previous employer. When questionned, they said oh yes, we just haven't got round to it yet. Should we be worried, or do they legally have to pay this? Is there a time limit?

Thanks for any help.

Yes, you should be worried.

Contributions should be made on (at least) a quarterly basis. Contributions are to be made by the 28th business day following the end of each calendar quarter.

Press your employer for action, else raise it with the ATO.

Super has to be paid by law and within certain time limits otherwise the employer is breaking the law and can face penalties.

That said unpaid super does not seem to be that uncommon and I know a couple of people where it has not been paid. If the employer does not have the money then they do not pay or maintaining their own lifestyle comes first.

Smaller companies when in trouble will often stop paying super as it goes unnoticed and then stop paying the wages, people carry on working for a few weeks unpaid and then leave or are made redundant. Seen this happen with two cabinet making companies on the Gold Coast to my knowledge.

We have people working for us now who have gone through this with their previous company and are still waiting for the receivers to sort things out months later.

I would imagine that if a company is regularly not up to date with Super it tells a story and not a healthy one and is certainly not that bothered about it's employees.

The ATO will take an interest if it is brought to their attention.

I suggest your husband contact his union rep,they are very good at getting a resolution.I take it he is in a union.

I worked for a company that on the outside looked healthy, on the inside I was party to info telling me a different story I approached the CEO on numerous occasions to privately point out my concerns, not just from my perspective by from other employees too. I didn't want to be tied up in any of this kind of issue as Super is money owing to employees. In a nutshell, the CFO was being instructed by the CEO [owner] to syphon off money to the owner and his family whilst he didn't pay his employees Super

The ATO kept making concessions and luckily for him the business won a contract that enabled it to go on.Otherwise the company would have gone bust, and not before the money was in the owners and his family's coffers whilst the employees would have got sod all. He was syphoning off money in the event the company went tits up, at least they would have been looked after even if employees wouldn't have had their Super paid

One of the things that infuriated me was the ATO are aware long before employees that the company was falling behind in Super payments. Generally Super fund organizations only advise of payments by sending out statements 6/12 monthly, by which time you've potentially lost a lot of money. It seems [as usual] the employers are protected at the expense of the employees.

Moral of the story: watch your Super like a hawk and don't trust what a company tels you, especially an owner. They may be lining their own pockets in the event a company goes down the swanny and don't rely on the law to protect you or your Super when it does

Hi
The same thing happened to me i got a statement through the post and my super had not been paid for over a year, i contacted the tax office and i was given a phone number to call.
I called them and made the complaint and a investergation was opened.
It took approx 2years to complete but during that two years my employer has been hit with many fines and he made many payments to us and even loss of interest.
When the investergation was opened into my employer it was found he had not been paying other people super on time etc,so the tax man fined him for that as well.
Im afraid it is well know that many companies forget or are late paying peoples super, it is up to you as the employee to check it is getting paid,according to the tax office
all the best and go get them

We had this initially and queried it with the Super people they said it hadn't been paid by employer they told us what to do/say to employer which was basically that it's a legal requirement maximum quarterly and if they don't pay they said to report them to ATO and apparently they will pay YOU and recoup it off the employer if they do this, they fine the employer - didn't come to that and employer paid.