Te whakatārewa i ngā tangohanga me ngā takoha KiwiSaver Suspending KiwiSaver deductions and contributions

• Your KiwiSaver employees can apply for a temporary break from paying into their KiwiSaver account. It’s called a ‘savings suspension’.
• An approved savings suspension means you stop employee deductions and your contributions.
• Employee’s apply for the suspension in myIR.

Apply for a savings suspension (employees)

Savings suspension notices

We approve your employee’s savings suspension. Once we have, we send a savings suspension notice to you and your employee.

The notice has dates showing how long the suspension is for. The suspension applies from your employee’s next payment of salary or wages.

When you have a copy of the notice stop:

• deducting KiwiSaver contributions from their pay
• compulsory employer contributions (CEC) and ESCT payments.

Suspension notices and your employer contributions

On the dates shown in the savings suspension notice you can stop:

• making compulsory employer contributions (CEC)
• paying employer superannuation contributions tax (ESCT). 

You can still make employer contributions to your employee’s KiwiSaver scheme. It's your choice. If you do, you pay employer superannuation contribution tax (ESCT) on the contributions.

When a suspension notice is ending

Employees can ask you to re-start their KiwiSaver deductions. They can do this before the end date on their suspension notice.

Sometimes employees apply for another savings suspension towards the end of their current notice. We’ll let you know if they do.

Close to the end of your employee’s savings suspension, we’ll notify you of the date you re-start:

• KiwiSaver deductions from your employee’s pay
• compulsory employer contributions (CEC) and ESCT payments.

Your employee cannot suspend or start their KiwiSaver deductions too often. The minimum period before they can ask for changes, unless you agree otherwise, is 3 months.

New employees who do not give you a suspension notice

New employees who tell you they're on a savings suspension must give you their approved savings suspension notice.

If they cannot give you a valid savings suspension notice, you’ll have to:

• deduct KiwiSaver contributions from their pay
• pay compulsory employer contributions and employer superannuation contributions tax (ESCT).

When your new employee gives you a valid savings suspension notice after they've started:

• refund them any deductions you’ve yet to pass on to us
• let your employee know they'll need to ask us for a refund of deductions you’ve passed on to us
• we’ll refund your compulsory employer contributions, you do not have to do anything to tell us.

You'll need to apply for a refund from us of any employer superannuation contribution tax you’ve paid. You can do this by either:

• filling in an Employment information amendments - IR344 form
• contacting us.