Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ), together with the Australian Bookkeepers Association, CPA Australia, the Institute of Public Accountants, the SMSF Association and The Tax Institute (The joint associations), lodged a submission on the Australian Taxation Office's draft determination, SGD 2026/D1 Superannuation guarantee: working out the payments in respect of a person's labour under a contract referred to in subsection 12(3) of the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992.

The joint associations support the publication of the draft determination and welcome the practical guidance it provides on identifying qualifying earnings under the Payday Super framework. We consider the determination will assist employers, advisers, agents and digital service providers in administering the new rules.

Our primary recommendation in this submission is that the final Determination should include a short introductory statement clarifying that it assumes a worker has already been determined to fall within subsection 12(3), and that the Determination is concerned solely with identifying the payments that constitute QE once that threshold has been satisfied. We acknowledge that this is noted in paragraph 2 of the Draft Determination. However, we consider that greater prominence should be given to this point.

We also identified several areas where additional guidance would improve certainty and reduce compliance costs. These include the treatment of availability payments, retainers and standby arrangements, as well as allowances and reimbursements.

We also encouraged the ATO to provide further examples covering overtime and on-call payments, valuation methodologies, evidentiary requirements, record-keeping practices, software licence arrangements, and the treatment of instalment and part-payments. Additional practical examples would help employers apply the rules consistently and meet their future Payday Super obligations with confidence.

The joint associations support the ATO's objective of providing practical and workable guidance for the new qualifying earnings regime. We believe the clarifications proposed in our submission would further improve certainty, reduce compliance costs and assist employers in implementing Payday Super consistently and effectively.