Tips for the New Financial Year

1st July 2015

A new financial year commences today, so it is opportune to consider changes that are occuring in the world of employee relations.

Wage Adjustments

The National Minium Wage (NMW) increases to $656.90 per week ($17.29 per hour)

Minimum wages in modern awards increase 2.5 per cent

Retail employees 20 years of age and employed for at least 6 months must be paid the full adult wage

Employers should check all wages currently paid to employees to ensure the minimum rates or higher are being paid. Subject to any agreement to the contrary, the increases may be absorbed in higher over-award salaries and wages.

Superstream Superannuation

A data and e-commerce standard has been introduced by the Government that allows employers to send contributions to all funds in one standard electronic form, removing the need to submit this information to separate funds in different formats.

Employers with 20 or more employees have until 31 October 2015 to apply the standard. Employers with fewer than 20 employees will have 12 months to start using the standard from 1 July 2015. If you are ready earlier, there is no need to wait and you can start at a time that suits you.

See the ATO Superstream section on <www.ato.gov.au> for further information.

High Income Threshold

The statutory high income threshold increases to $136,700 per year. Employees that are guaranteed yearly earnings of this amount or higher are not protected for unfair dismissal and are excluded from the application of modern awards. The threshold includes the employee’s wages, salary sacrifice amounts and agreed value of non-monetary benefits such as car parking, food and accommodation.

Penalties increase

The value of a penalty unit increases to $180. This is relevant to employers because various sections of the Fair Work Act 2009 provide civil remedies for breaches of the Act such as general protections, awards and enterprise agreements.

The maximum penalties for breaching the civil remedy provisions are expressed as a number of penalty units. The maximum pecuniary penalty for a corporation is five times the maximum number of penalty units. This means for example, the maximum penalty for a corporation breaching the general protections provisions (60 penalty units) has increased by $3,000 to $54,000 for each breach (ie 60 x 5 x $180).

Please contact me if you wish to discuss any of these or other matters relevant to your business.