Stapled Superannuation - combining your employees' super funds into one

The ATO has release additional requirements when it comes to nominating an employee's super fund. You will have an extra step to take if you have new employees who start from 1 November 2021 and they don’t provide you with the details of their chosen super fund.
You may need to request their ‘stapled super fund’ details from the Australian Taxation Office. A stapled super fund is an existing super account of an employee that follows them as they change jobs.

This change aims to stop your new employees paying extra account fees for unintended super accounts set up when they start a new job.

What you need to know
You may need to request stapled super fund details when:
• your new employee starts on or after 1 November 2021
• you need to make super guarantee payments for that employee, 
• your employee is eligible to choose a super fund but doesn’t
You and your representatives can request stapled super fund details for your employees if you have full access to Online services for business. You need to review and update these accesses to protect the privacy and safety of your employees’ personal information.
You must meet your choice of super fund requirements and any stapled super fund obligations by the quarterly due date or you may face penalties.

What you need to do from 1 November 2021
Step 1: Offer your eligible employees a choice of super fund
If an employee joins you, you must give them a super choice form, this is critical so you get the super details of the employee so you can pay them, as non payment and late payment are one of the priority audit areas for the tax office and not having the employees super details is not a valid excuse.
Step 2: Request stapled super fund details
If the employee doesn’t give you their fund details, you can look up on the ATO to see if the employee has a fund listed with them and then make payment to that super fund. This is what has changed, you can now see if the ATO has fund details on record. If you need to do that step, our admin and bookkeeping team can support you. 
The criteria thing is after 28 days, if you don’t have the employees fund details from them then look them up with the ATO. The employee will get an SMS and/or email if you look up their info if they are registered with a MyGov account.
Step 3: Pay super into a default fund
You can pay into a default fund, or another fund that meets the choice of fund obligations if:
• your employee doesn’t choose a super fund, and
• The ATO has advised you that they don’t have a stapled super fund.