Concessional Contributions
Concessional Contributions are contributions where a tax deduction has been claimed, either by the Member or by an Employer. Concessional Contributions include the following Contribution Types:
Employer Contributions
Salary Sacrifice Contributions
Personal Contributions where a tax deduction is claimed
Each Concessional Contribution Type is discussed below:
Employer Contributions
These Contributions are made by your Employer. Employer Contributions are contributions made by an Employer for the benefit of an SMSF Member commonly known as Superannuation Guarantee Contributions (SGC). Typically these contributions are made at 10% of your salary income. Your SMSF can accept these Employer Contributions for Members at any time. This means your SMSF may accept them regardless of your age or the number of hours you are working at that time. No documentation is required to be completed if you make Employer Contributions.
Salary Sacrifice Contributions
These Contributions are made by your Employer on instructions from you. Salary Sacrifice Contributions are voluntary superannuation contributions made by an Employer to your SMSF over and above their Superannuation Guarantee or award obligations. These contributions are made to your SMSF instead of to you as an Employee receiving that amount as salary. No documentation is required to be completed if you make Salary Sacrifice Contributions. For more information on Salary Sacrifice Contributions please click here.
Personal Contributions where a Tax Deduction is claimed
These Contributions are made by you. Voluntary Personal Contributions that you make to your SMSF, where you claim a tax deduction for the contribution in your Personal Tax Return are also Concessional Contributions.
Documentation
If you make a personal Concessional Contribution into your SMSF and in turn claim a Tax Deduction on that Contribution in your Personal Tax Return, you will need to complete the following documents.
1. ATO Tax Deduction Form
The contributing member must complete a notice of intent to claim a deduction form on or before whichever of the following days occurs earliest, either:
- the day the member lodges the tax return for the year in which the contributions were made;
- the last day of the financial year after the financial year in which the member made the contributions.
The form can be found here* for completion.
2. Confirmation of Receipt & Acceptance of Section 290-170 Notice
The Trustees of the SMSF need to complete the Confirmation of Receipt & Acceptance of Section 290-170 Notice to acknowledge the member’s notice of intent to claim a deduction.
The Notice will be generated automatically when you complete the annual checklist.
How to Make a Personal Concessional Contribution
If you are eligible for Personal Concessional Contributions, please follow the steps detailed below to complete the process:
Step One: Make a Contribution to your SMSF
If you wish to make a cash contribution, you will need to deposit cash into the bank account owned by your SMSF.
If you wish to make "in specie" contributions (i.e. transfer an eligible asset into the SMSF directly instead of cash), please refer to our website here for more information.
Step Two: Complete Documentation and Notify ESUPERFUND
You will be asked to confirm on whose behalf the contributions have been made and the Contribution Type using an annual checklist we send to all SMSF clients each year by 31 August. For more information on the Annual Compliance Process, please click here.
To enable ESUPERFUND to report the contribution type correctly in the SMSF Tax Return, please select the correct contribution type – “Personal Contribution – Concessional” when completing the annual checklist.
Based on the contribution type selected, we will collect the ATO Tax Deduction Form and the Confirmation of Receipt & Acceptance of Section 290-170 Notice as part of the checklist completion process.
Step Three: Claim a Tax Deduction in the Personal Tax Return
The last step is to claim a Tax Deduction on that Contribution in your Personal Tax Return. You need to contact your personal tax accountant for the process. If you do not have a personal tax accountant, you may contact the ATO directly should you need any assistance in lodging your Personal Tax Return.
Work Test Requirement to make a Concessional Contribution
If you are under age 67 you do not need to pass a Work Test or meet the Work Test Exemption criteria to make a voluntary Concessional Contribution into your SMSF.
Maximum Concessional Contributions Allowed
The Concessional Contribution limit applicable for a given Financial Year is as follows. The limits apply to the total of your Employer, Salary Sacrifice and Personal Concessional Contributions.
| Income Year |
Amount of Cap |
| 2021-22 |
$27,500 per member per annum |
| 2020-21 |
$25,000 per member per annum |
| 2019-20 |
$25,000 per member per annum |
Additional to Non Concessional Contributions
The limits detailed above are in addition to any Non Concessional Contributions that you are permitted to make into your SMSF.
Tax on Concessional Contributions
All Concessional Contributions made by each Member of the SMSF must be deposited into a Bank Account established for your SMSF. Tax is payable on Concessional Contributions made into an SMSF at the rate of 15%.
Additional 15% tax on Concessional Contributions for high-income earners
Those earning more than $250,000 a year will have their Concessional Contributions taxed at 30% rather than the standard 15%. The definition of "income" is: Taxable income + concessional contributions + adjusted fringe benefits + total net investment losses.
Concessional Contributions (i.e. your employer's contribution, salary sacrifice contributions and contributions by a self-employed person claiming a tax deduction) will count as income. For example, if your taxable income is $280,000 and your employer makes $25,000 in concessional contributions, you will trigger the threshold because your income will be assessed as $305,000 (i.e. $280,000 + $25,000 = $305,000). The additional tax of 15% (30% in total) will apply to those concessional contributions that take your income over $250,000, which in this case is on the extra $55,000.
Income includes investment losses including losses on borrowing money to buy shares or from negatively geared property. For example assume your taxable income is $200,000, which has been calculated after deducting a net $90,000 loss on investment properties. You also receive $10,000 in fringe benefits, and your employer makes super contributions of $18,000. Under the rules, your income is $318,000. This is $68,000 above the $250,000 income trigger, which means your concessional contributions will now be taxed at 30% instead of 15%.
Low income earners won't pay contributions tax
Effectively, a person whose income is less than $37,000 will have the contributions tax on concessional contributions returned to their Fund, meaning they won't pay any contributions tax. Worth a maximum of $500, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) will pay the Low Income Super Tax Offset refund to the SMSF. Like the co-contribution, a key eligibility requirement is that at least 10% of the person's income must come from employment.
How ESUPERFUND tracks Concessional Contributions
Each Contribution and Contribution Type must be allocated to a specific Member as part of the annual compliance process. This is a legal requirement. Typically the Member making the Contribution and the Contribution Type will be detailed on the Bank Statement. To the extent that the narration on the Bank Statement is insufficient, you will be asked to confirm on whose behalf the contributions have been made and the Contribution Type using an annual checklist we send to all SMSF clients each year by 31 August. You do not need to send us confirmation at the time each Concessional Contribution is made. This information is only required annually and we will guide you through the process and prompt you when information is required from you. For more information on Frequently Asked Questions about Concessional Contributions, please click here.
Excess Concessional Contributions
If you exceed your Concessional Contribution Limit, the Excess Contributions over the Concessional Contribution Limit will be added to your personal taxable income and taxed at your personal marginal tax rate with a 15% tax offset to account for the contributions tax already paid by your SMSF. You will need to pay this additional tax from your personal account. If you exceeded your Concessional Contribution Limit prior to 1 July 2021, you would also need to pay an interest charge calculated by the ATO known as the excess concessional contributions (ECC) charge.
To the extent your Concessional Contributions exceeded your Concessional Contribution Limit, the ATO will contact you by sending you a Determination letter and a Notice of Assessment after the lodgement of your SMSF Annual Return. You will be asked to choose whether you want to release the Excess Concessional Contributions from your SMSF. You have the following options:
Option 1 Leave the excess concessional contributions in your SMSF
If you choose this option, you are choosing not to release any amount from your SMSF. The excess concessional contributions will be counted towards your non-concessional contributions cap. We caution that this may in turn cause you to exceed your non-concessional contributions cap. For more information about excess non-concessional contributions, please click here.
Option 2 Release up to 85% of the excess concessional contributions from your SMSF
If you choose to release your Excess Concessional Contributions from your SMSF, the amount released from your SMSF can be used to help pay the tax on your excess concessional contributions and the released amount will not count towards your non-concessional contributions cap.
To select this option, you need to make an election specifying the amount you wish to release via ATO online services or complete the excess concessional contributions election form and send it to the ATO. Generally, you have 60 days after the date of issue of the determination to make an election and the election is irrevocable.
Once the ATO processed your election, they will send a release authority form to the superfunds you nominated. You will have 20 business days to action a release authority which includes paying the amount stated in the release authority and completing the release authority to send it back to the ATO. Importantly the amount should only be released after the release authority is received.
Please note that a copy of the completed release authority is required to be provided to our office via the annual checklist for audit purposes.
Catch up concessional Contributions
From 1 July 2018, you are able to make "carry-forward" concessional super contributions if you have a total superannuation balance of less than $500,000 at 30 June of the previous Financial Year.
If you are eligible, you will be able to access your unused concessional contributions cap space on a rolling basis for five years.
Amounts carried forward that have not been used after five years will expire.
Only unused amounts accrued from 1 July 2018 can be carried forward. This means the first year in which you can access unused concessional contributions is the 2019-20 Financial Year.
For more information on Catch up Concessional Contributions, please click here.
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