Personal super contributions

How to make personal super contributions, including claiming a tax deduction so they are concessional contributions.

What are personal super contributions?

You can boost your super by adding your own personal contributions, which are the amounts you contribute directly to your super fund.

If you claim a tax deduction for them, they’re concessional contributions and are effectively from your pre-tax income. They are taxed in the fund at a rate of 15%.

If you don’t claim a tax deduction for them, they’re non-concessional contributions and are from your after-tax income or savings. They are not further taxed.

Personal contributions:

• are in addition to any compulsory super contributions your employer makes on your behalf
• do not include super contributions made through a salary-sacrifice arrangement.

Personal contributions are subject to the contributions caps that apply to concessional and non-concessional contributions.

Claiming deductions for personal super contributions

To claim a deduction for your personal super contributions, you must give your super fund a notice in the approved form and get an acknowledgment from the fund. There are other eligibility criteria you must meet.

The personal super contributions you claim as a deduction will count towards your concessional contributions cap.

When deciding whether to claim a deduction for super contributions, you should consider the possible impacts, including whether:

• you will exceed your concessional (before-tax) contributions cap, which limits the amount that can be contributed to your super fund that is taxed at the concessional rate of 15%
• you will have to pay Division 293 tax, which applies when your combined income and concessional super contributions for Division 293 purposes is more than $250,000
• you wish to split your contributions with your spouse
• it will affect your super co-contribution eligibility.

If you exceed your cap, you will have to pay extra tax, and any excess concessional contributions you leave in super will count towards your non-concessional contributions cap.

Note: A deduction can only be claimed in whole dollars. If you made a personal contribution in dollars and cents, the residual cents will remain a non-concessional contribution and will count towards the relevant cap.

Deductible personal contributions count towards your reportable super contributions.

Eligibility to claim a deduction

Contributions you can claim

You’re eligible to claim a deduction for personal super contributions if:

• you made the contributions to your fund that was not a: a) Commonwealth public sector super scheme in which you have a defined benefit interest b) constitutionally protected fund (CPF) or other untaxed fund that would not include your contribution in its assessable income c) super fund that notified us before the start of the income year that they elected to either treat all member contributions to the:  super fund as non-deductible & defined benefit interest within the fund as non-deductible
• you meet the age restrictions
• you have given your fund a notice of intent to claim in the approved form
• your fund has validated your notice of intent form and sent you an acknowledgment.

Contributions you can’t claim a deduction for

You can’t claim deductions for:

• contributions paid by your employer from your before-tax income such as a) the compulsory super guarantee b) salary sacrifice super contributions c) other reportable employer super contributions
• a rolled over super benefit
• a benefit transferred from a foreign super fund
• first home super saver (FHSS) amounts you have recontributed to your super fund(s)
• contributions to a) a Commonwealth public sector super scheme in which you have a defined benefit interest b) a super fund that would not include the contribution in their assessable income, such as an untaxed fund or a constitutionally protected fund c) other super funds or contributions specified in the regulations
• downsizer contributions
• re-contribution of COVID-19 early release of superannuation amounts.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comment section. We will be happy to answer all your queries.