What happens if superannuation is paid late in Australia?

The contribution stops being deductible, permanently, and the employer becomes liable for the Superannuation Guarantee Charge. The SGC is made up of the shortfall calculated on total salary and wages rather than ordinary time earnings, nominal interest, and an administration component per employee per quarter. Lodging the SGC statement voluntarily is materially better than being assessed for it.

When is BAS due in Australia?

Quarterly BAS is generally due 28 days after the end of the quarter, with the December quarter extended to 28 February. Businesses lodging through a registered agent usually get a further concessional extension. Monthly lodgers are due on the 21st of the following month.

Should overdue BAS or unpaid super be dealt with first?

Superannuation first, in almost every case. The failure-to-lodge penalty on a BAS accrues in units and stops when the form is lodged, and it is capped. The super consequence is a permanent loss of deductibility plus interest that keeps compounding, and the amount at stake is usually larger than the lodgement penalty by a wide margin.

Why do marketplace payouts break a BAS?

Because the payout is net and the BAS needs gross. A platform deposits sales less commission, advertising, refunds and shipping, and recording only the deposit understates sales revenue, hides deductible expenses and misstates the GST collected. The payout has to be decomposed into its components before either the GST or the margin figure means anything.

Can an outsourced provider lodge our BAS?

Lodging a BAS for a fee is restricted to registered BAS and tax agents in Australia. Salt prepares the BAS to lodgement-ready state against a reconciled ledger, and the client's own registered agent reviews and lodges it under their agent number. If a client does not have one, that introduction is made before the work starts rather than at the deadline.

Is superannuation still paid quarterly?

Quarterly payment 28 days after quarter end is the long-standing rule, but a move to paying super at the same time as salary and wages has been legislated. Confirm the commencement date that applies to your first affected pay period before setting a payment calendar, because the change affects cash timing rather than the amount owed.

E-commerce · 🇦🇺 AustraliaScenario

Overdue BAS and unpaid super: which one is sequenced first

Superannuation is remediated before BAS, because late super loses its deductibility permanently and triggers the Superannuation Guarantee Charge, while a late BAS accrues a penalty that stops the day it is lodged. This is an illustrative example of how Salt approaches an Australian catch-up, using an 11-person Melbourne e-commerce brand as the profile.

Ask how we'd handle this

Scenario — an illustrative example of how Salt approaches this problem. Not a description of a specific client engagement.

The business shape it describes: Australian e-commerce brand, 11 staff, around 3,100 transactions a month.

Scenario covers: Catch-up bookkeeping, superannuation review and preparation of overdue BAS to lodgement-ready state
Jurisdiction: Australia
Sector: E-commerce

The setup

Take a Melbourne e-commerce business of 11 staff that grew through a strong season and stopped reconciling. Several quarterly BAS periods are outstanding.
The founder is worried about the ATO failure-to-lodge penalty. The superannuation position underneath has not been looked at.

What usually turns out to be wrong

Superannuation guarantee contributions paid after the quarterly due date. Super is due 28 days after the end of each quarter, and paying late means the employer must lodge a Superannuation Guarantee Charge statement, loses the deduction for those contributions permanently, and pays nominal interest and an administration component on top.
Marketplace payouts recorded net of fees, which understates revenue and expenses simultaneously and puts the GST base out by the fee component.
GST-free and taxable sales not separated at the transaction level, so the BAS figures are an allocation rather than a total.
Inventory never reconciled to the platform, so cost of goods sold is an estimate and gross margin is unreliable.

How this would be worked

Sequence superannuation first. The SGC clock and the loss of deductibility behave differently from a lodgement penalty, and the difference is permanent.
Quantify the shortfall per employee per quarter and prepare the SGC statement position, so the disclosure is made rather than found.
Rebuild marketplace payouts gross, separating revenue, platform fees, shipping and GST per channel, because a net-recorded payout cannot be reconciled to a BAS however carefully it is lodged.
Reconcile inventory to the platform and restate cost of goods sold on landed cost.
Prepare each outstanding BAS to lodgement-ready state against reconciled figures. Lodgement stays with the client's registered BAS or tax agent, who lodges under their own agent number.

Why we'd be the right fit

The BAS backlog is the presenting complaint; the missed super quarters underneath it are usually the more expensive problem, and they only surface if someone looks past what was asked.
Rebuilding marketplace payouts gross across each channel is what makes the GST position defensible. Lodging a tidy BAS over net-recorded payouts just files a wrong number on time.

What the business would be able to do

The business would be able to lodge each outstanding BAS against a reconciled ledger, through its own registered agent, rather than against an estimate.
The superannuation position would be quantified, disclosed and corrected on the employer's initiative rather than surfaced by an ATO review.
Gross margin would be calculated on landed cost against reconciled stock, which is the figure ad spend decisions actually need.

What we'd flag

Superannuation deductibility for a late quarter cannot be recovered. That is a permanent cost of the delay and no cleanup undoes it. Restating payouts gross also moves reported revenue up and margin down, so the margin figure the founder has been using is likely to get worse.

Answers

Overdue BAS and unpaid super: which one is sequenced first

Where this applies

Catch-Up BookkeepingService PayrollService All services in AustraliaAASB / Australian GAAP More scenarios42 illustrative, labelled examples

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