You may be able to claim a tax deduction for personal super contributions that you make from your after-tax income, for example from your bank account directly to your super fund.
You must give a notice of intent to claim a deduction to your super fund on or before whichever of the following days occurs earliest, either:
the day you lodge your tax return for the year in which the contributions were made
the last day of the income year after the income year in which you made the contributions.
Eligibility Criteria
You are eligible to claim a deduction if:
you made personal contributions to a complying super fund
you have given your super fund a valid Notice of intent to claim a tax deduction form (NAT 71121) advising the amount you intend to claim as a deduction, in the approved form, and within the timeframes explained above
your super fund has acknowledged receipt of your Notice of intent to claim a deduction.
Note that you cannot claim a deduction for:
First Home Super Saver (FHSS) amounts that you have recontributed to your super fund
contributions that are identified as downsizer contributions.
A notice of intent is only valid if:
you are still a member of that super fund
the trustee still holds the contribution (special rules apply for voluntary rollovers, and situations where there has been a successor fund transfer or a MySuper transfer)
the notice of intent doesn't include all or a part of an amount covered by a previous notice
the trustee has not begun to pay a super income stream based in whole or in part on the contribution
you haven't lodged an application to split the contribution for which you intend to claim a deduction (even if the application hasn't been dealt with by the fund)
the contributions included in the notice of intent have not been released from the fund you are giving the notice to under the FHSS scheme
it does not include all or part of a FHSS amount that you recontributed to your fund.
When deciding whether to claim a deduction for super contributions, you should consider the super impacts that may arise from this, including whether:
- you will exceed your contribution cap
- Division 293 tax applies to you
- you wish to split your contributions with your spouse
- it will affect your Government super co-contribution eligibility.
If you exceed your cap, you will have to pay extra tax and any excess concessional contributions will count towards your non-concessional contributions cap.
For more information refer to ato.gov.au or talk to your accountant or tax adviser.
