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Knowing how much you have in your super account and if your employer has been making regular contributions are important pieces of information when it comes to managing your financial affairs.
That’s now much easier to do thanks to upgrades to the ATO’s online services and the government’s myGov portal.
By linking your myGov account to the ATO’s online service, lots of information about your super account is at your fingertips.
What’s happening?
Super funds are now required to report to the ATO via the Member Account Transaction Service (MATS) whenever an employer makes a contribution payment to a super fund.
In addition, extension of the government’s Single Touch Payroll (STP) system to businesses with 20 or less employees, means most smaller employers must now send tax and super information to the ATO directly from their payroll software each time they pay employees.
MyGov: What super-related information is available?
1. See your super accounts
Using myGov, you can view all super accounts reported to the ATO for you by a super fund, retirement savings account or SMSF. These include:
- open accounts – flagged with a ‘yes’ indicator if they have received a super contribution in the past six months
- closed accounts – accounts closed on or after 1 July 2018
- inactive accounts – accounts with no contributions in the past six months or more
- lost accounts – these are considered ‘lost’ because the super fund is not able to contact you
- pension accounts.
Details of a newly opened super account should be available soon after it opens, provided the super fund has reported it to the ATO.
Defined benefit funds and some public sector superannuation schemes report differently, and members of these funds will only be able to see information from the latest annual reporting date.
2. Check your employer’s SG contributions
With STP, most employers are now required to report information about reportable employer super contributions to the ATO. These include Superannuation Guarantee (SG), salary sacrifice amounts, voluntary employer contributions and award contributions.
By combining this with data from super funds, the ATO can now better identify if your employer is complying with its SG contribution obligations.
3. Check for ATO-held super
If the government, your super fund or your employer can’t find an account to transfer your super to, the ATO holds the money on your behalf until you claim it.
ATO-held super includes lost member accounts; inactive low-balance accounts; unclaimed super for members aged 65 years or older, non-member spouses and deceased members; and super for temporary residents who have left Australia for six months or more.
4. Check your insurance cover
Using the ATO online service with myGov, you can view details of whether you have insurance cover as part of your super account.
If you want to know more about how much insurance protection (death, total and permanent disability, and income protection) you have and the details of your insurance policies, you should contact your super fund.
5. Find lost super
It’s easy to lose track of your super if you have switched jobs, moved house or lived overseas for a period.
If you have unintentionally lost track of some super, you can now check where your super is – or any super accounts you may have forgotten about – using the ATO’s online services through myGov.
6. Combine multiple super accounts
Tools on the myGov portal allow you to easily transfer (or rollover) money you have in multiple super accounts into a single super account of your choice.
You can only transfer the full balance from one super account to another super fund using this online service. Partial balance transfers cannot be done online with myGov and you will need to contact the super fund directly.
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7. View your total super balance (TSB)
With myGov you can see your TSB at 30 June of the previous year and view your transfer balance cap details.
The ATO online service also allows you to make any elections associated with your transfer balance cap (such as commuting an excess transfer balance cap amount).
8. Pay your Division 293 bill
You can also view, pay or elect to release money from your super account to pay for any super-related tax liabilities. These include a Division 293 tax bill and tax on excess concessional and non-concessional super contributions.
9. Check bring-forward arrangements
With myGov you can now see how much of your three-year bring-forward contribution cap balance remains if you have been making non-concessional (after-tax) contributions above the annual contributions limits.
10. Apply for the First Home Super Saver (FHSS) scheme
If you are eligible, you will be able to apply for the FHSS scheme online. You can also apply for a FHSS determination and to withdraw your voluntary super contributions from the scheme.
