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A tax roadmap for your final working years: Maximising caps, timing
Miss the timing in your final working years and some tax breaks are simply gone. Our roadmap shows you what to do, and when.
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How to manage early retirement due to ill health
A roadmap to your entitlements, insurance claims and super options if ill health forces you into early retirement.
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Forced to retire early? Your financial options explained
Early retirement isn’t always your choice, but knowing your options can take some of the sting out.
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Retirement confidence: What the latest research tells us
At least nine major surveys of Australians’ retirement attitudes have been released in the past year, and their findings converge on one message. Retirement confidence depends on more than how much you have saved. Knowing whether your money will last, having a plan and understanding your options matter too.
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: In 2016 the government made a new rule that you couldn’t have more than $1.6 million in your retirement account, and it has stayed like that up until now. So I wanted to know if I could add more to it. The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) basically said no, so I want to know if I can’t, then can I have an accumulation account and how much can I put into it?
A: The limit you’ve mentioned is the transfer balance cap.
The transfer balance cap started at $1.6 million on 1 July 2017 and has since been indexed. The general cap was $2 million in 2025–26 and increased to $2.1 million on 1 July 2026.
This general cap only applies to people who had not used any of their transfer balance cap before the last time the cap was increased by indexation.
If you have previously started a retirement phase account (pension), you have a personal transfer balance cap that is lower. Each time the general cap is indexed, your personal cap goes up by an amount that reflects the proportion of the cap you have not yet used.
If you have ever used 100% of your cap, for example, by holding a pension in 2017 with the entire cap of $1.6 million that applied at that time, then your personal cap will never increase because your unused cap proportion is zero.
If you have fully utilised your personal transfer balance cap, then you can’t add more into the retirement phase of super without first commuting some or all of your current pension, but you can hold a separate accumulation balance. There is no limit to the amount that can be held in an accumulation account, but from 2026–27 additional tax applies to investment earnings when your total super balance is above $3 million (Division 296 tax).
Your ability to make contributions to an accumulation account is limited by your age, work status and total super balance.
People under 75 can make non-concessional contributions if their total super balance is below the general transfer balance cap that applies in the year the contribution is made. The option to contribute more than the usual non-concessional cap using the bring-forward rule is limited for people with a total super balance close to the transfer balance cap.
Those under 67 can make personal tax-deductible (concessional) contributions, and those aged 67–75 can do so if they meet the work test.
Anyone aged over 75 can’t generally make personal contributions. If they are employed, they can receive compulsory contributions from their employer. A downsizer contribution is also possible if an eligible property is sold.
Learn more about the transfer balance cap and Division 296 tax, and try our contribution eligibility checker.
Tip of the month
Wondering how much of your super return is being eaten up by fees? Indexed investment options are one of the lower-cost ways funds invest, though they come with trade-offs worth understanding first.
