Superannuation promises fall short for COSBOA

The Council of Small Business of Australia (COSBOA) has demanded superannuation funds take more responsibility for the contributions process from small business owners.

The Government has announced it will ramp up efforts to promote its small business clearing-house, although it falls short of a proposal from COSBOA.

The announcement was made at the fourth meeting of the Superannuation Roundtable on Friday, where the Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation, Bill Shorten, said that while the clearing-house reduced red tape for employers, super funds needed to promote the service better.

But COSBOA said the clearing-house was the "next best thing" behind aligning PAYG and super fund contributions in making the process easier for small business.

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COSBOA executive director Peter Strong said it was time super funds stopped treating small business like unpaid "slaves".

"There's an extraordinary lack of understanding that a small business person is just a person, they do it (super contributions) in their own time or they pay someone to do it," he said.

He said matching contributions to tax would make it easier for the Government to assess tax rates and allow super funds to engage with members and develop products to suit their needs.

Super funds should be actively promoting the use of the clearing-house to employers, according to Strong.

"If anyone's in contact with all of the employers in the country, it's them…and it's to their benefit for us to use it because the money moves much more quickly," he said.

Issues like what to do with funds before tax time and compliance could be nutted out, Strong said.

The Institute of Public Accountants has also called for the Government to combine PAYG with superannuation contributions.

It said requiring the funds to produce quarterly or half-yearly contribution notifications would be costly, while putting the onus on the 'engaged' employee would be inefficient.