Early release of superannuation on financial hardship grounds 003-09020000

Services Australia's only role is to issue an eligibility letter to the customer to confirm if they meet the income support requirements for the early release of superannuation under financial hardship grounds.

Service Officers must use the Issue Superannuation Advice workflow in Process Direct to assess the customer’s record and issue an eligibility letter.

Manual issue of eligibility letters

An eligibility letter should only be issued manually if the Process Direct workflow has returned an incorrect result. A Note/DOC must be added to the customer's record explaining why a manual letter was required.

Before manually issuing a letter (Q230 or Q251), Service Officers must check to confirm that the customer meets the income support requirements. For more details, see Table 2, Step 1.

Note: issuing an incorrect letter can cause consequences for the customer when they lodge an application with their super fund, including rejection of their application. This is common when the super fund uses CCeS and the information returned through the service does not match the information on the customer’s letter.

Check the Nominee Link Summary (NOLS) screen.

If the customer does not have a nominee arrangement, go to Step 3.

If they have a nominee arrangement, check the Nominee Relationship Summary (NORS) screen.

Does the customer have CRT (Court appointed involuntary nominee arrangement) or PAI (Power of Attorney involuntary nominee arrangement) recorded as Reason for Arrangement on NORS?

• Yes:
• Contact the nominee to get approval to issue an eligibility letter. A copy of the letter must be sent to the nominee and their name included in the DOC
• If unable to contact the nominee or they do not give approval to issue an eligibility letter, tell the customer their nominee will need to request the eligibility letter. Procedure ends here
• No, go to Step 3

Check the customer's preservation age. See Preservation age for access to superannuation on the Resources page.

Has the customer reached their preservation age?

• Yes, go to Step 4
• No, assess their eligibility for early release, go to Step 5

Is the customer permanently retired?

• Yes:
• They may be able to access their superannuation under the normal release conditions
• Tell the customer to contact their superannuation fund
• Procedure ends here
• No, check their eligibility for early release using the Issue Superannuation Advice workflow in Process Direct. Go to Step 5

Important: Process Direct checks if a customer has met the income support requirements for early release of superannuation on financial hardship grounds according to Regulation 6.01 (5) of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Regulations 1994, It does not assess or decide if superannuation monies can be released early– the customer’s super fund does this.

In Process Direct:

• Enter the customer’s CRN
• Key START in the Super Key
• Select the Issue Superannuation Advice workflow from the Task Selector
• Select Start
• The Issue superannuation advice summary screen will show the customer’s eligibility information and any letters to be generated
• Select Source from drop down list
• Select Print location:
• Central, or
• Local. Update the Printer field (this field only shows where ‘local’ print location is selected)
• Select Print to finalise the workflow
• Once finalised the Snapshot page opens

Tell the customer:

• they should give the eligibility letter to their superannuation fund to support their application for an early release of super on financial hardship grounds
• Services Australia does not assess applications or decide whether the customer is in financial hardship and superannuation monies are able to be released. The customer's super fund makes these decisions
• if they disagree with a decision about their application, they must discuss this with their super fund. Service Australia cannot review or overturn decisions
• the Q230 and Q251 eligibility letters are only valid for 21 days after issue. If the customer's circumstances change during this time, the fund may take that into account when assessing their application
• they may need to pay tax on any early withdrawal of superannuation funds if they are below preservation age. The ATO website has more details
• money withdrawn from superannuation is not assessed as income. If it is used to buy an asset or generate income, further assessment may be needed
• if the customer has not met income support requirements, there are very limited other reasons (such as compassionate grounds) under which they can apply for early release of superannuation. See the Resources page for a link to Early access your super on the ATO website

Note: If the customer does not know which superannuation fund they are with:

• the ATO may help through SuperSeeker
• a former employer may know

Procedure ends here.

Has the Issue Superannuation workflow in Process Direct been used to check the customer’s eligibility?

• No, Process Direct must be used. See Table 1 Check eligibility for early release of superannuation in Process Direct
• Yes, and result was either incorrect or disputed by the customer. Go to Step 2 to complete manual checks of eligibility

Go to the Pensions General Information (PNGI) screen. Check the result in the Early Release super Eligible field.

Note: The result shows if the customer has met the income support requirements for the early release of super on financial hardship grounds. It does not show if the customer will be able to access their superannuation early. This decision is made by the super fund who assesses the customers full circumstances.

The field will show one of the following codes:

• Y - customer is receiving an eligible income support payment, and has been continuously for the last 26 weeks
• F - customer is receiving an eligible income support payment, and has been so for a cumulative period of 39 weeks after reaching their preservation age plus 39 weeks
• B - customer meets both criteria
• N - customer does not meet either criteria

Does the code Y, F or B show on the PNGI screen?

• Yes, manually issue the relevant eligibility letter/s as below:
• Y= Q230 letter
• F= Q251 letter
• B= Q230 and Q521 letter
• Go to Step 6 to add a DOC
• No, go to Step 3

According to the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Regulations 1994, a customer has met the income support requirements for early release of superannuation if they:

• are getting a qualifying payment at the time of their application, and
• received a qualifying payment for a continuous period of 26 weeks immediately before applying for early release of superannuation

Current Zero Rate (CZR) and nil payment periods

Periods of CZR or nil payment are a break in payment of income support and mean the continuous period is broken. This means:

• A 'continuous' period ends on the last day the customer was entitled to payment.
• A new continuous period starts on the next day the customer is entitled to get a payment

Some exceptions exist. A nil payment or CZR period can be disregarded when:

• the customer is on a pension payment (e.g. PPS) and received part supplement payments during a CZR period. In this case refer to the PNGI screen to confirm early release of super eligibility
• there has been a change to the type of payment, as long as all payments are qualifying payments and there is no gap in payment entitlement
• the suspension and restoration of the same payment has resulted in a gap in entitlement of less than 14 days

See the Resources page for examples of the CZR and 14 day rule.

Review payment history

Count the number of continuous weeks the customer has received a payment, checking for nil payment or CZR periods, using the following screens:

• Payment summary (PS)
• Allowance/Benefit History (ABH)
• Pension Status History (PNSH)
• Overpayment Debt List (OPDL)
• Check for overpayments or debts that indicate the customer was not entitled to any payment for a period
• Do not consider debts still under investigation or incomplete reviews
• Workspace>Payment List for Farm Household Allowance
• Rate Explanation (REX) screen
• Documents List (DL)

Note: If a customer has multiple Customer Reference Numbers (CRNs), check the payment history on both records. A qualifying payment ending on the old/duplicate record and starting on the primary record on the same day has been continuously paid for the purposes of the early release of super.

Has the customer received a qualifying income support payment for a continuous period of 26 weeks immediately before claiming for early release of superannuation?

• Yes:
• Issue Q230 letter
• Go to Step 6
• No, go to Step 4

If the customer is at least 39 weeks older than their preservation age, they can use the 'cumulative period of 39 weeks' rule to meet the income support requirements.

See the Resources page for a table of preservation ages.

The customer does not need to be current on a qualifying payment when making the application.

Is the customer at least 39 weeks older than their preservation age?

• Yes, go to Step 5
• No:
• The customer does not meet the income support eligibility requirements
• Issue Q247 non-eligibility letter
• Go to Step 6

Has the customer received an eligible income support payment for a total of at least 39 weeks at any time since reaching preservation age?

• Yes:
• Issue Q251 eligibility letter
• Go to Step 6
• No:
• Issue Q260 non-eligibility letter
• Go to Step 6

Record the reason in a Note/DOC to clearly explain why the workflow in Process Direct was not used and a manual letter was required.

Go to Step 7.

Tell the customer:

• they should provide the eligibility letter to their superannuation fund to support their application for an early release of super on financial hardship grounds
• Services Australia has no involvement in determining whether or not the customer is in financial hardship, or in deciding if superannuation monies are able to be released. The customer's super fund will make these decisions
• the Q230 and Q251 eligibility letters are only valid for 21 days after issue. If the customer's circumstances change during this time, the fund may take these changes into account
• they may need to pay tax on any early withdrawal of superannuation funds if they are below preservation age. The ATO website has more details
• money withdrawn from superannuation is not assessed as income. If it is used to buy an asset or generate income, further assessment may be needed

If the customer has not met income support requirements, there are very limited compassionate grounds that may apply. See the Resources page for a link to Accessing your super on compassionate grounds on the ATO website

If the customer does not know which superannuation fund they are with:

• the ATO may help through SuperSeeker
• a former employer may know

Procedure ends here.

Superannuation funds may contact the National Business Gateway - Confirmation Services Helpdesk (by phone or email) to confirm information on a letter before making a decision about the early release of a customer’s superannuation. This commonly occurs if the super fund has used Centrelink Confirmation eServices (CCeS) to check the customer's details and there is a discrepancy between the result returned through the service and information on the letter.

Staff must:

• not give information to the super fund that breaches a customer’s privacy
• only confirm information given by the super fund
• not give new information

If the super fund does not use CCeS staff should promote the service and refer the super fund to the Services Australia website for more information, including how to apply.

Ask the superannuation fund for the following information (if not already provided):

• Customer Reference Number (CRN)
• Full name of customer
• Address of customer

Find the customer’s record and check if the letter was sent using either the:

• History Summary (HS) screen, or
• Archiving and Culling Engine (ACE)

Is the information given by the superannuation fund correct?

• Yes, go to Step 4
• No, go to Step 5

Tell the super fund that information is correct as per our records and DOC the following:

• Super fund [name of fund] contacted by [phone / email] to verify Q230/Q251 letter
• Enquirer's name [name] and contact number [number]
• Date of letter advised [DD/MM/YYYY]

Procedure ends here.

Tell the super fund the information given does not match the letter on the agency's records. Do not give the super fund the correct information.

As the superannuation fund has enquired because the information in the Q230/Q251 could not be verified, report the discrepancy as necessary:

• If a system issue has been identified, raise an incident for further investigation
• If Service Officers suspect fraudulent activity has occurred see Report Suspected Fraud and Corruption