How can I top up my super pension?

For various reasons, it’s common to continue making super contributions when you have already started a pension with your super savings.

Perhaps you’re drawing a transition-to-retirement pension or an account-based pension while you continue to work and make concessional contributions. Maybe you’re retired and taking advantage of the opportunity to contribute to your super until you reach 75. Or perhaps you’d like to make a downsizer contribution.

Contributing while drawing a pension raises a common question. How do you get your new contributions into your pension account? Contributions and transfers from another super account can’t be added to an existing pension, so additional steps are required.

There are two main options. You can:

• Use your accumulated contributions to start a new pension alongside your existing account, maintaining multiple pensions
• Stop your existing pension, combine the balance with your accumulated contributions and then recommence a new, larger pension.

If you have a lifetime or fixed-term super pension, it may not be possible or favourable to stop the pension. This article focuses only on account-based pensions.

Before deciding which approach to take, it may be important to consider how the process could affect the tax components of your savings.

Background