Advisers, accountants want 2 year delay on pay day super

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor and Publisher

12 May 2025

The industry superannuation funds want the newly-elected Albanese Labor Government to introduce pay day superannuation as soon as possible, but the major accounting and advice groups have countered by calling for a two-year delay.

Major accounting group, Chartered Accountants ANZ (CA-ANZ) has called for the two-year delay arguing that most businesses are simply not ready for the changes.

The accounting and advice groups said that if the Government remained committed to its current implementation date, then a grace period should be provided to serve as a buffer.

“It is critical that businesses be given more time to prepare, because super payments require additional steps making them more complicated than salary and wages,” CA-AZ group executive of advocacy and international development, Simon Grant said.

He said that CA-ANZ had made the call in a joint submission with other peak bodies representing Australia’s tax profession, superannuation sector and financial advisers.

“Payday super is a significant reform that we support in principle, but we need to get the balance right,” said CA ANZ Group Executive Advocacy and International Development Simon Grant.

“Our joint submission puts forward 22 recommendations to the Government, but our chief concern is that employers, payroll systems providers, super funds and other important stakeholders need time to make the technology changes and improvements.

“That’s why we’re calling for a two-year delay to the implementation date to ensure we don’t see unintended consequences occur as a result of rushing these important reforms,” Grant said.

The joint submission signed off by CA-ANZ, CPA Australia, the Institute of Public Accountants (IPA) the SMSF Association, and the Financial Advice Association of Australia (FAAA) said that postponement of the start date should be at least 12 months but ideally 24 months.

Further it urges implementation of a tiered approach with larger entities transitioning first, followed by smaller businesses.

The submission also argues for a temporary increase in the concessional contributions cap for the start of the year to 125% of the normal cap.