Taxpayers paid $140m for failed private companies’ unpaid wages bills in the first nine months of the last financial year, with the cost expected to rise to $882m over the next four years.

Australia’s corporate regulator is also yet to use its powers to disqualify directors who misuse the unpaid wages safety net because new penalties introduced in April are not retrospective.

Despite tough new laws for misuse of the safety net passed in April, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission has revealed that no company directors or managers have yet met the test for potential disqualification for improperly accessing the fair entitlement guarantee.

Figures in industrial relations minister Christian Porter’s incoming ministerial brief, produced under freedom of information, shows that the program is expected to cost $882m over the next four years and that recovery actions over the past four years have raised just $90m for the commonwealth.

The attorney general’s department told Guardian Australia this has now risen to $170m, after a $66m recovery from the Queensland Nickel litigation.

The average annual cost of the Feg has skyrocketed from an average $70m a year between 2005 and 2009 to $253m a year in the past four years, due to “sharp” practices to avoid entitlements such as “phoenix” activity in which one company goes insolvent but the business and assets are transferred to another company to continue with the same directors or officers.

In November 2017 Guardian Australia reported that 1,322 people, who were each directors of two or more companies that failed, were responsible for one-quarter of the $1.6bn 10-year cost of the unpaid wages program.

The employment department refused to release the identity of the directors, warning that to do so could tip them off that they were subjects of current or pending investigations.

In April, the Coalition passed laws that give Asic and courts the power to disqualify company directors, officers and managers with a track record of involvement in corporate contraventions who accessed the Feg scheme inappropriately and returned minimal funds to the commonwealth.

No causal connection needs to be proved between the misconduct – such as shifting assets away from the company – and the call on the taxpayer’s purse for unpaid wages.

Company officers are eligible for disqualification if they access the Feg twice in a seven-year period, including up to five years before the law came into force, but at least one corporate contravention must occur after that date for the power to be used.

An Asic spokeswoman said its new power to disqualify company officers and managers “is not retrospective” meaning that “the criteria that needs to be met to disqualify a person must relate to conduct that occurred on or after 6 April 2019”.

“To date, no person has met the criteria set out in this provision to be considered for disqualification,” she said.

Asic is “keen use these new provisions and [is] on the look out for appropriate cases” and is consulting with the department “to help identify and refer persons that may meet the criteria to be disqualified under this provision”.

The new law also gives the Australian Tax Office, Fair Work Ombudsman and secretary of the attorney general’s department powers to seek compensation where a company enters into transactions to avoid employee entitlements.

The department, ATO and FWO have confirmed they are yet to make an application for compensation under the new provisions.

In a statement the department said it did not expect to use its powers for another six months because a company liquidation would have to have been “underway for at least 12 months … to determine the insolvency claims for recovery available”.

“No circumstances have been identified to date which would warrant the secretary exercising the powers mentioned.”

“The department’s Feg recovery program is actively engaging with the insolvency industry to identify cases which will allow the employee entitlements contribution order reforms to be tested.”

The ACTU secretary Sally McManus said the forecast growth of the cost of the Feg “shows that the practice of directors avoiding their responsibility to employers is systemic”.

“This shows the reality of the economy under the Morrison government – growing fragility which will leave workers high and dry, and a government which is doing everything it can to shield bosses from the consequences of their actions.”