Loading
choffan(Enthusiast)Enthusiast
17 June 2021

Dear ATO community,

I resigned from my job in May 2021. Two weeks after resigning I received a rather dodgy email from a payroll account apparently linked to my former employer claiming that they discovered that earlier during the year their company payroll has mistakenly made a series of excess contributions (totalling to $2000) to my super account. Without providing any documentation or explanation, the email asked me to return a signed "deduction authority form" which they included in order to allow them to recover the money.

I understand that as a former employee, it is not my responsibility to deal with such issues: if a payment has been made to the superfund in mistake, the employer has to deal with it with the super-found, not the employee. Is that correct?

I already witnessed mistakes from that company payroll and as I don't have the technical knowledge to assess the correctedness of their claim, I do not inted to sign the consent form.

I would like to confirm with ATO whether the above line of reasoning is correct and if it is my right to ignore their request

thanks for your time,

4,757 views
13 replies
4,757 views
13 replies

Most helpful response

Most helpful reply

RichATO(Community Support)Community Support
17 June 2021

Hi @choffan

You are correct in thinking that your former employer should be seeking to obtain the refund of the excess super contributions directly from your super fund.

I'm sure your super fund will also require your consent to this and should be able to provide sufficient documentation to demonstrate to you that it's legitimate.

There are two quick things you could do for peace of mind:

1. You could call your former employer to verify the legitimacy of the request and to ask for more details about how the overpayment has been calculated;

2. You could also review your payslips for the period in question and work out your gross income for the period. Then calculate 9.5% of that to give you the super contributions that should have been made by your employer and compare that number against what is showing for super on the payslips.

If either of the above don't stack up then @Bruce4Tax is probably right!

RichATO

All replies

Bruce4Tax(Taxicorn)Taxicorn
17 June 2021

I resigned from my job in May 2021. Two weeks after resigning I received a rather dodgy email from a payroll account apparently linked to my former employer claiming that they discovered that earlier during the year their company payroll has mistakenly made a series of excess contributions (totalling to $2000) to my super account. Without providing any documentation or explanation, the email asked me to return a signed "deduction authority form" which they included in order to allow them to recover the money.

I understand that as a former employee, it is not my responsibility to deal with such issues: if a payment has been made to the superfund in mistake, the employer has to deal with it with the super-found, not the employee. Is that correct?

I already witnessed mistakes from that company payroll and as I don't have the technical knowledge to assess the correctedness of their claim, I do not inted to sign the consent form.

I would like to confirm with ATO whether the above line of reasoning is correct and if it is my right to ignore their request

Looks like a scam to me.

Loading
My employer claims it made mistaken super payment | ATO Community