Compulsory member contributions while stood down

Qantas will automatically deduct your regular compulsory member contributions from your pay for any periods during which you’re working or taking paid leave. Currently, there will not be any extra deducted to account for your unpaid compulsory member contributions from your periods of stand down.

Yes, you can. If you choose Option 1 and have an offset account created now, but later decide you want to start paying your contributions, you can do this by either opting in to transfer funds from your voluntary accumulation accounts to cover your unpaid compulsory member contributions or setting up a salary sacrifice arrangement with Payroll via the Stand Down Member Contributions Salary Sacrifice Agreement form on The Terminal. You can set up a salary sacrifice arrangement up even if you have not yet returned to work; Payroll will then begin to deduct contributions from your pay when you return. If you choose to set up a salary sacrifice arrangement, you must pay the contributions owed on a pre-tax basis.

You cannot make BPAY contributions directly to your offset account.

Your compulsory member contributions owing are determined on a post-tax basis. However, if you choose to continue paying your contributions, you can choose to pay them on a pre-tax or post-tax basis. If you want to pay via BPAY, you must pay the post-tax amount owed. If you are back at work and want to pay via salary sacrifice, you must use the pre-tax amount owed.

This is because salary sacrifice contributions are paid from your pre-tax salary, and are taxed at 15% when they reach your super account. This means the amount you salary sacrifice may not match up to the amount owing when it’s determined on a post-tax basis.

For example, if you owe $500 on a post-tax basis and contribute $500 via salary sacrifice, your contribution will have $75 in tax (or 15%) deducted when it reaches your super account. That means you have only contributed $425 of your $500 owing. In order to meet the $500 owing you would need to contribute $588 on a pre-tax basis.

Interest began to apply to unpaid compulsory member contributions from 1 December 2021. That means that if you received a notice from Qantas Super about your unpaid contributions accrued to 30 June 2021 and either chose to stop paying, or chose to keep paying but did not pay your amount owing in full by the due date of 30 November 2021, an offset account has been created to track these unpaid contributions and interest began to apply from 1 December 2021. The interest rate is 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).

Yes. This is because your compulsory member contributions owing are determined on a post-tax basis. Meanwhile, because salary sacrifice contributions are paid from your pre-tax salary, they’re taxed at 15% when they reach your super account. This means the amount you salary sacrifice may not match up to the amount owing.

For example, if you owe $500 on a post-tax basis and contribute $500 via salary sacrifice, your contribution will have $75 in tax (or 15%) deducted when it reaches your super account. That means you have only contributed $425 of your $500 owing. In order to meet the $500 owing you would need to contribute $588 on a pre-tax basis.

If your total owing in the latest statement you have received from us is a negative amount, this means you have contributed more than Qantas has currently advised us you owed, and you do not currently need to make any contributions. If we are advised that you have contributions owing for the next quarter, they will be deducted from this surplus. We will then be in contact to let you know if there is any amount owing.

If you set up a salary sacrifice arrangement, your payments moving forward will be managed by Payroll, and you will no longer be bound to the due date specified on the last statement you received from Qantas Super.  However, you must enter into the salary sacrifice arrangement before the due date on the last statement you received from us.

If you’ve been making voluntary contributions via BPAY, these have gone into an accumulation account and received investment returns. If you would like these to go towards your compulsory member contributions, you can opt-in to transfer funds from your voluntary accumulation accounts. This will work as explained above, under payment option ‘Transfer funds from your voluntary accumulation accounts’.

If you opt-in, we will initially transfer the amount you have owing as of the last statement you receive from us on or before 31 October 2021, with this transfer to be made effective prior to 1 December 2021. We’ll then transfer the amount owing each time your employer advises us of your debt, before the stated due date for the payment of that debt.

If there are insufficient funds in these accounts to cover your outstanding debt by the due date, then investment earnings will be applied to the offset account from the due date using the same rates that apply to Qantas Super’s defined benefit assets.

For Division 3 members, we will deduct the unpaid compulsory member contributions from your redundancy benefit when it is paid to you, or after it’s transferred into the Gateway Division.  If an offset account has been set up, we may also need to take into account any contributions that Qantas Payroll need to report to us if they have not yet been added to your offset account at the time you leave the Qantas Group.

If you haven’t paid your contributions in full by the due date or entered into an arrangement to either pay them by salary sacrifice or by transferring funds from your voluntary accumulation accounts, you have agreed that you will be treated in accordance with Option 1; that is, you request to suspend your obligation to pay all outstanding and future compulsory member contributions while you’re stood down. In that case, as a member of Division 1 or a member of Division 2 who has a minimum guaranteed benefit from an Australian Airlines plan, we will create an offset account to track all your outstanding and future compulsory member contributions. From 1 December 2021, this account will have interest applied to it at the same rate 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).

If you have chosen to keep paying your contributions and have so far kept up to date, but then miss a due date for any amounts owing that we advise you of in the future, you will be treated in accordance with Option 1 from the following day. For example, if you have received notice of contributions accrued for the July – September 2021 quarter and do not pay these by the due date of 31 March 2022, an offset account will be created on 1 April 2022 and interest will apply from that date.

For any statement we issued on or before 31 October 2021, you needed to pay those contributions so that they were received by Qantas Super by 30 November 2021. For statements issued after that date, we’ll generally give you at least four weeks from the date we issue your quarterly statement to pay your compulsory member contributions; please check your statement to find the specific due date. If you haven’t paid your contributions owing in full by the stated due date on the last statement you receive from us, you will be treated in accordance with Option 1; that is, you request to suspend your obligation to pay all outstanding and future compulsory member contributions while you’re stood down. Please ensure you make any payment with enough time to ensure it reaches your account by the due date.

There are caps on the contributions that you can make into super on both a before-tax (concessional) and an after-tax ( non-concessional) basis. If you exceed one or both of these caps you will incur tax penalties. Any contributions you and your employer pay will count towards your contributions caps in the financial year that you pay them.

If you have chosen Option 2, to continue paying your contributions, you can pay them in one of three different ways. This means:

If you pay via BPAY
If you pay your compulsory member contributions via BPAY, using the new biller code dedicated to these types of contributions, these will be classified as post-tax contributions and count towards your non-concessional contributions cap. You are unable to claim a tax deduction for compulsory member contributions made via BPAY. You can make up to $110,000 in non-concessional contributions in the 2023/24 financial year. Please note, the non-concessional contributions cap was $100,000 in 2020/21, and increased to $110,000 in 2022/23.

If you pay via salary sacrifice
If you pay your contributions via a salary sacrifice arrangement with your employer via the Stand Down Member Contributions Salary Sacrifice Agreement form on The Terminal, they will be classified as pre-tax compulsory member contributions, rather than pre-tax voluntary contributions. As a member of Division 3, the compulsory member contributions you make on a pre-tax basis are included in your notional taxed contributions calculation for the year the contribution is made. Your notional taxed contributions (or NTCs) are grandfathered, which means your NTCs will be capped at the concessional contributions cap ($27,500 for the 2021/22 financial year and $25,000 for 2020/21), even if the NTC calculation produces a higher amount. This means you will not have to pay extra tax on these contributions if you breach the concessional contributions cap solely as a result of paying your compulsory member contributions in a different financial year.  For more information on NTCs, you can find the relevant fact sheet for your division and job type.

If you pay by transferring amounts from your voluntary accumulation accounts
If you pay your contributions by transferring existing amounts from your voluntary accumulation accounts (which include any voluntary contributions accounts you may have, or any Rollover or Other Employer accounts), the transfers themselves will not count towards your caps. This is because you’re not making or paying new contributions when you transfer amounts from the existing balance of those accounts – instead, you’re transferring amounts that are already within the super system, which you were taxed on when you first paid them into your super. If you make new voluntary contributions (pre-tax or post-tax) into your voluntary accumulation accounts, these will then count towards your contribution caps in the financial year in which you make them.

Some examples:

1. Jack is a Division 3 member who was stood down for 12 months. His Super Salary is $160,000 and he has member contributions owing of $8,000 post-tax, or $9,412 pre-tax. Jack decides to pay off the full amount during the 2021/22 financial year though a salary sacrifice arrangement with his employer via the Stand Down Member Contributions Salary Sacrifice Agreement form on The Terminal. Jack’s NTC calculation is 1.2 x (9% x Super Salary less after-tax compulsory member contributions), which is $17,280, calculated as 1.2 x (9% x Super Salary). The amount of member contributions he makes on a pre-tax basis does not impact the calculation, so the NTC remains at $17,280 even if $9,412 is paid in addition as pre-tax compulsory member contributions.

2. If Jack made the payment via BPAY, his NTC calculation would change to 1.2 x (9% x $160,000 – $8,000) = $7,680.

3. If Jack instead paid $9,412 worth of voluntary salary sacrifice contributions (and didn’t request these to be reclassified as compulsory member contributions), then Jack would go over the concessional cap, as his total concessional contributions would be NTC of $17,280, plus voluntary salary sacrifice contributions of $9,412 = $26,692 in total.

4. If Jack already had $8,000 in a voluntary account, made up of contributions from previous financial years, and he transferred this voluntary account to the offset account created for the compulsory member contributions debt, there would be no impact on his concessional contributions for the current financial year as a result of this transaction. Jack’s NTCs would remain at $17,280.

Yes, you can set up a salary sacrifice arrangement by filling out the Stand Down Member Contributions Salary Sacrifice Agreement form on The Terminal. Payroll will start to deduct contributions from your pay when you return to work.