If you know you will have a capital gains tax liability in a particular year, you may be able to use ‘catch up’ contributions to make a larger than usual contribution and use the tax deduction to help offset your capital gain tax bill.

But, this strategy will only work if you meet the eligibility criteria to make catch up contributions and you lodge a Notice of intent to claim or vary a deduction for personal super contributions, with your super fund.

If your super balance is below $500,000 on the prior 30 June, and you want to quickly increase the amount you hold in super, you can utilise any unused concessional super contributions amounts from the last 5 years.

Let’s look at the example of Gary who has only been using $15,000 of his concessional super cap for the last few years. Gary’s super balance at 30 June 2023 was $300,000, so he is well within the limit to make catch up contributions.

Gary could access his $27,500 concessional cap for 2023-24 plus the unused $55,000 from the prior 5 financial years.

If Gary doesn’t access the unused amounts from 2018-19 by 30 June 2024, the $10,000 will no longer be available.

The general rate for the transfer balance cap (TBC), that limits how much money you can transfer into a tax-free retirement account, will remain at $1.9 million for 2024-25. The TBC is indexed by the December consumer price index (CPI) each year.

The revised stage 3 tax cuts have passed Parliament and will come into effect on 1 July 2024.

Before the new tax rates come into effect, check any salary sacrifice agreements to ensure that they will continue to produce the result you are after.