In a statement released on Wednesday, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg confirmed that the measures, which passed Parliament in October last year, had come into force from 1 January.
“Unscrupulous employers will no longer be able to short-change employees who make salary sacrificed superannuation contributions,” Mr Frydenberg said.
“From today, employers will no longer be able to use salary sacrifice contributions to satisfy their superannuation guarantee obligations.”
The changes were announced as part of a range of new measures Mr Frydenberg said would strengthen the economy by “building resilience and rewarding aspiration”, which also included a requirement for government agencies to pay e-invoices within five days and the introduction of the new First Home Loan Deposit Scheme.
While important for employers to take note of from a compliance perspective, the changes could also have ramifications for SMSF trustees planning their contribution amounts for the coming year.
In a recent presentation at SMSF Adviser’s SMSF Summit 2019 in Sydney, SuperConcepts general manager of technical services and education Peter Burgess said the way the new rules were structured meant employees making close to the maximum amount of concessional contributions could inadvertently breach their contribution cap.
“It seems to be that this could give rise to some excess concessional cap if we’re not careful, because the client’s SG contribution is going to be increased so if they are right up against the $25,000 now and they are making salary sacrifice contributions, there is going to be an increase in their SG,” Mr Burgess said.
“So just be wary of that for clients that might be in that situation, because from 1 January employers now have to calculate the SG on the larger amount of [pre-salary sacrifice] income.”
