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What to check on your annual super fund statement
Your annual super statement tells you more than just your balance. Here’s what to check to make sure your retirement plan is still on track.
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APRA’s performance test: Is your super underperforming?
APRA’s annual test names the super funds and investment options falling short, and what happens next if yours is one of them.
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Balanced, Growth, Conservative: What super fund labels don’t tell you
Nearly half of super labels don’t match their true risk category, based on our review of 251 investment options against their actual growth asset mix.
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How does a super fund work? Trustees and other key roles
Ever wondered why your super fund is set up like it is or who provides its services? It comes down to who does what, and who’s accountable when things go wrong.
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Super fund performance: Monthly returns to August 2026
Super funds added to their gains in August, with share markets doing the heavy lifting despite worries about inflation and geopolitical tensions.
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Super news for September 2026
One Nation proposes diverting 3% of super into pay, record new SMSFs started by younger people, Colonial First State settles for $249 million, three funds penalised over misleading disclosures, further fallout from the First Guardian collapse, $21.2 billion in super is sitting lost.
Upcoming webinar
Related party transactions: The SMSF rules you need to know
Thursday 22 October 2026 at 11:00 am AEDT
Related party transactions remain one of the most important and often misunderstood areas of SMSF compliance.
In this webinar, we identify who is subject to the relevant rules and explore common issues that often arise when an SMSF transacts with related parties, including:
- The arm’s length rules
- Providing services to your SMSF
- Acquiring assets from a related party and selling assets to a related party
- Loans and leases to or from your SMSF
- How the in-house asset rules operate in practice
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Watch our previous webinar, SuperGuide members Q&A: September 2026.
Q&A of the month
Q: Last financial year, my employer discovered they owed me back-pay of super they had failed to pay previously. This occurred because they were not paying super on performance bonuses, which is required.
I cancelled my voluntary salary sacrifice to super immediately, but I’ve still exceeded the annual concessional cap by a large amount. I’m not eligible to carry forward previous unused cap space because my balance is too high.
Is there anything I can do about this? If the back-paid contributions had been paid correctly in the years that I received the bonuses, I could have planned accordingly to stay under the limit.
A: Thankfully, the ATO has a solution for this problem. When your contributions for a financial year exceed the cap (or you believe they will), and there are special circumstances, you can apply for some contributions to be disregarded or reallocated to a different financial year.
Special circumstances are unusual factors that can lead to an unjust, unreasonable or inappropriate outcome. There is no list of situations that fit the definition, so it is up to the ATO commissioner to decide each case individually based on the evidence provided.
The ATO will consider whether the contributions would more appropriately be allocated to another year, whether it was reasonably foreseeable for you that the cap would be breached, and the amount of control you had over the contribution being made.
If you have received an assessment for excess contributions, you have 60 days after it was issued to make your application. If you haven’t yet received an assessment, you can apply to have the contributions disregarded or reallocated at any time.
Find out more about what to do if you exceed your contribution caps and access the application and instructions to have contributions disregarded or reallocated.
Tip of the month
Research shows the average super balances of self-employed people are significantly lower than those of employees and around 20% of self-employed people have no super at all. If you’re working for yourself, don’t let super fall by the wayside.
Find out your obligations and how to make super work for you.
