Salary sacrifice deductions for non-super benefits are incorrectly being included in employee qualifying earnings. This causes the type Q amount reported in STP to be too high.
This affects salary sacrifice pay items set as pre-tax deductions, with the following setup on the Pay Item Liabilities form (MPPP1025):
- Liable for Superannuation (SG) checkbox selected.
- Liable for Qualifying Earnings (QE) checkbox selected
-
ATO category set to Salary Sacrifice - Other.
We're working to fix this issue in an upcoming release.
For example
Let's say Emma earns $3,000 each pay period and salary sacrifices $50 to a gym membership benefit. The sacrificed benefit is not liable for super, so both Emma's earnings liable for super and her qualifying earnings should be $2,950. However, the issue causes the sacrificed benefit to be included in her qualifying earnings, which would be incorrectly reported as $3,050. You can see the reported amount on the Manage STP Submissions form (MPPP5019).
Employer SG value also decreases
Because the salary sacrifice pay item is liable for SG, the earnings base changes for the employer SG, not just the employee SG.