Superannuation funds have been providing cheap (and in some cases, free) personal financial advice to super fund members with the blessing of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), since 2009.In early July 2009, ASIC announced that it’s okay to provide personal financial advice over the phone, ... Read more
Making superannuation contributions
A Super Guide
Superannuation contributions (including personal contributions and employer contributions) are a cash amount, or in some cases an asset, that is contributed to a complying superannuation fund, on behalf of an individual under the age of 75. Super contributions and investment earnings on those contributions are the key to accumulating a substantial retirement nest egg.
You can make two types of superannuation contributions to your super fund. You, or your employer, can make concessional (before-tax) contributions to your super fund. You, or your spouse, or the federal government, can make non-concessional (after-tax) contributions to your super fund.
You have two caps – a concessional contributions cap ($25,000 for the 2017/2018 year, and for the 2018/2019 year), and a non-concessional contributions cap ($100,000 for the 2017/2018 year, or for the 2018/2019 year).
Note: If you are aged 65 years or over, you must satisfy a work test before making super contributions (see SuperGuide article For over-65s: Ten tips when making super contributions).
Important: The Total Superannuation Balance is a new restriction on super contributions. For the 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 year, if you have more than $1.6 million or more in super, you cannot make non-concessional (after-tax) contributions, receive spouse contributions, or receive the government co-contribution (see SuperGuide article Total Superannuation Balance: 7 reasons why your TSB matters).
In this section, discover how much your employer must pay into your superannuation fund, how much you can contribute, the tax-free bonus the federal government gives you, contributions strategies and everything you need to know about making personal superannuation contributions. Find out how you can make concessional (before-tax) contributions, non-concessional (after-tax) contributions, receive co-contributions and more.
Click on the links directly below to access the following topics about making superannuation contributions:
- Superannuation contributions strategies
- 2017/2018 Contributions Guides
- Super contributions caps
- Superannuation Guarantee (SG)
- Salary sacrifice and super
- Tax-deductible super contributions
- Spouse contributions
- Transfer balance cap and super contributions
- Contributions tax
- Excess contributions
As a starting point you may want to consider reading the following SuperGuide articles:
Set out below are all SuperGuide articles referring to Making superannuation contributions.
Take the SuperGuide Quiz (No. 2): Do you know how to boost your super?
How familiar are you with the superannuation contributions rules? Do you know how much your employer should be contributing, and whether your employer’s contributions affect the amount that you can personally contribute? Did you know you can make two types of super contributions?Are there limits on how much you can ... Read more
Superannuation Guarantee: How do I find unpaid or lost super?
Q: I worked in a company in Perth. I left that job and returned to the east coast. As it was a new company they decided to pay super after 6 months and supposedly kept the funds in an investment account until then. When I arrived in the east I sent them the name of a fund I wished to have the money put into. That did ... Read more
SuperGuide checklist: 10 more ways to boost your super
Note: This is the second article in a special two-part series that SuperGuide updates regularly, designed to help SuperGuide readers plan for retirement. This article, and the first article in the series, Super checklist: 10 ways to save your super (link also appears at the end of this article), is accompanied by links ... Read more
Why women must save more super, and why pollies should care
When we first launched SuperGuide nine years ago, I wrote an article explaining why tax-free super in retirement was a non-issue for most women. The reason for making this statement, and which unfortunately remains valid nine years later, was that many women, on average, have such low super account balances that the ... Read more
Superannuation rules: What applies at different ages?
Compulsory superannuation contributions (Superannuation Guarantee) and voluntary superannuation contributions are an integral part of the federal government’s retirement income policy, along with the taxpayer-funded Age Pension.As an incentive for Australians to stash money away for 30 to 40 years (rather than ... Read more
Australia not ready for Age Pension age of 70 years
The capacity of developed nations around the world to provide a decent taxpayer-funded old Age Pension is being tested constantly with increasing life expectancies, escalating health costs, mind-boggling energy costs, and in many cases, shrinking populations.Although Australia is fortunate (in economic terms) to ... Read more
Super opportunity: Catch-up concessional contributions from July 2018
Any Australian considering making super contributions since 1 July 2017 needs to be mindful that the annual concessional (before-tax) contributions cap is much lower than previous financial years. Since July 2017, the annual concessional contributions cap has dropped to $25,000, which is a lot lower than concessional ... Read more
Latest super changes: ATO Guidance Notes and Law Companion Guidelines
You have to worry about the complexity of super changes, when the Australian Taxation Office releases a suite of Law Companion Guidelines (LCGs), trying to explain many of the July 2017 changes, and several of these LCG documents exceed 100 pages a pop.The LCGs have been written with advisers and accountants in ... Read more
New $100,000 cap: Cut to non-concessional contributions cap
The annual $100,000 non-concessional contributions cap and the maximum $300,000 bring-forward cap, which took effect from 1 July 2017, became law on 29 November 2016 (passed both houses of parliament on 23 November 2016, and received royal assent on 29 November 2016).Background: On 15 September 2016, Treasurer ... Read more
Latest superannuation changes: 2017/2018 guide
Substantial changes to the superannuation rules took effect from 1 July 2017: have you investigated how the super changes will affect your superannuation and retirement plans for the 2017/2018 year, and for future financial years?At the same time, many of the super rules in place have not changed from previous ... Read more
Superannuation checklist: What rules apply for the 2017/2018 year?
Although the Coalition government has made significant amendments to Australia’s superannuation rules, many of the super policies did not change from July 2017 (see list later in article).For your convenience, we have split the 2017/2018 year superannuation checklist into 2 categories of super rules. The first ... Read more
