Compulsory member contributions while stood down

If you’re a member of Division 3 and request to suspend making compulsory member contributions while you’re stood down, we will need to make an adjustment to your benefit and the way its calculated. This is because your compulsory member contributions help to fund your defined benefit.

We’ll make this adjustment by creating an account called an offset account that will track unpaid compulsory contributions. This offset allows us to ensure that these missed contributions are taken into account when it’s time to calculate the total value of your benefit.

Some important things you should know about offset accounts (where there are outstanding unpaid contributions or interest):

• the balance of the account is negative and is included when calculating your total benefit
• the balance includes the amount of any contributions that have not been paid
• when interest is applied, the balance will increase in line with positive investment earnings applied on this account (and decrease in line with negative investment earnings applied on this account)

Initially, the offset account won’t have any interest applied. This means your defined benefit will only be reduced by the amount of the compulsory member contributions that have not been paid. For example:

Defined benefit = $100,000
Unpaid compulsory member contributions = $1,000
Total benefit = $99,000

Interest will start to apply on the offset account from 1 July 2021. The interest rate will be the same as the investment earnings that apply to Qantas Super’s defined benefit assets. You can view these by downloading our weekly credited interest rates (CIRs).

You can reduce the balance of your offset account by making contributions via BPAY (see opposite). Qantas has advised that you may also be able to make salary sacrifice contributions when you return to work, and they will provide more information in due course.

If you confirm to us that you will keep paying your compulsory member contributions, it’s important that you pay them by the due date specified on your quarterly statement.

As part of confirming that you will keep making those contributions, you are agreeing that if you do not make them in the time stipulated, you’re agreeing to be treated in accordance with Option 1. That is, you’ve requested to suspend your obligation to pay all outstanding and future compulsory member contributions while you’re stood down. In that case, we will create an offset account and the matters set out on the left, under the section “Option 1: How requesting to suspend your compulsory contributions will impact your benefits” will apply to your offset account.

You can pay your compulsory member contributions in two ways.

You can make contributions to your account via BPAY. We’ve created a new BPAY biller code specifically for your compulsory member contributions to make sure they’re classified correctly. You must use these new details going forward. You can find them by logging in and clicking the ‘Personal details’ tab under the icon next to your name.

If you don’t use this new BPAY biller code when paying your contributions, they will be classified as ‘voluntary’ instead of compulsory member contributions when they reach your super account, and they will not be counted towards your compulsory member contributions.

Note that contributions made through BPAY are treated as post-tax contributions, and will count towards your non-concessional contributions cap. You are unable to claim a tax deduction for compulsory member contributions or contributions towards your compulsory contribution offset account made via BPAY.

Once you return to work, Qantas has advised that you may be able to choose to gradually pay the outstanding compulsory member contributions through salary sacrifice arrangements. More information on how to do this will be available from Qantas in due course.