Claiming deductions for personal super contributions
You can’t claim a deduction for superannuation contributions paid by your employer directly to your super fund from your before-tax income such as:
the compulsory super guarantee
Salary sacrificing super amounts
You may be able to claim a tax deduction for personal super contributions that you made to your super fund from your after-tax income, for example, from your bank account directly to your super fund. Before you can claim a deduction for your personal super contributions, you must give your super fund a Notice of intent to claim or vary a deduction for personal contributions form (NAT 71121) and receive an acknowledgement from your fund. There are other eligibility criteria that you must meet.
People eligible to claim a deduction for personal contributions include people who get their income from:
salary and wages
a personal business (for example, people who are self-employed contractors, or freelancers)
investments (including interest, dividends, rent and capital gains)
government pensions or allowances
super
partnership or trust distributions
a foreign source.
The personal super contributions that 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 super impacts that may arise from this, including whether:
you will exceed your contribution caps
Division 293 tax applies to you
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 will count towards your non-concessional contributions cap.
For more information, see Super contributions – too much can mean extra tax.
Find out about
Australian Taxation Office
(ATO)