TaxRambling.com

What do you do regarding super payments if an employee dies? In ATO Interpretative Decision ATO ID 2014/31 the Commissioner considers whether you have SG obligations on salary and wages paid to an employee after they died. In this case the payment was made as the employer owed the employee salary for the last fortnight they had worked before they had died.

An employer’s SG shortfall for an employee for a quarter is based on the total salary or wages paid by the employer to the employee for the quarter. So can a dead person be an employee?

Section 15B of the SGAA says that former employees as employees. So a deceased employee will be a former employee and therefore an employee under the SGAA.

The Explanatory Memorandum to the Tax Laws Amendment (Simplified Superannuation) Bill 2006 specifically stated that a deceased employee is a former employee at paragraph 1.39 when discussing the deductibility of super payments.

So there you have it. Super paid for the dead required by law.