Claiming deductions for personal super contributions

Australian Taxation Office
(ATO)

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
• Reportable employer super contributions.

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

• Eligibility to claim a deduction
• How to make a claim
• What you can’t claim
• How to vary your notice
• Splitting amounts to your spouse
• The effects of claiming a deduction