Toowoomba's Premier Financial Adviser - Call 
The government has a problem. We have an ageing population and they are not going to be able to afford to provide age pensions to everyone. This means they need to encourage people to save towards their own retirement and this is the reason why superannuation exists.
In order to encourage people to use superannuation and save for their own retirements, the government has provided some very attractive taxation benefits to funds held within the superannuation environment. While people are working and growing their superannuation, the maximum tax rate on money in superannuation is 15%. In retirement after age 60, they can receive all their benefits tax free.
Unfortunately, while superannuation remains a very attractive mechanism for saving for retirement, the governments' inability to resist tweaking the rules all the time mean that many people don't fully understand how superannuation works, what they can do with it and the complete range of concessions available. Among others some available strategies can include:
While superannuation can be complicated, it exists for a reason and if used well, can make achieving retirement goals ever so much easier. The best thing you can do is talk to us today and see if there are areas where you are missing out.
Salary sacrifice is where you forgo salary in exchange for your employer paying extra amounts to your superannuation.
If you salary sacrifice, instead of you paying tax at your marginal rate (which can be up to 46.5%) the super fund pays tax at a flat 15%.
For $10,000 of salary sacrifice, this could mean a benefit of up to $3,150 per year.
With a Transition to Retirement Pension, you can receive income from your superannuation to supplement income that you receive from working. This can help you meet living costs and can also be used to accelerate repaying a mortgage or increase salary sacrifice contributions.
What many don't realise is that it will also improve the tax efficiency of your existing super because earnings in a super fund are taxed at up to 15% whereas earnings inside a Transition to Retirement Pension are tax free.
If $300,000 in a super fund earns say 6% pa, this means the super fund has income of $18,000 pa and would pay 15% tax which comes to $2,400 per year. If the $300,000 was used for a Transition to Retirement Pension, this $2,400 per year of tax can potentially all be saved.
The federal government provides an incentive for people earning less than $61,920 to contribute to their own superannuation as personal contributions. For each $1 contributed to superannuation the federal government will match it up to a certain level. The maximum they will match is $1,000 for people earning below $31,920.
This means that a person could contribute $1,000, the government would match it with an extra $1,000 so that the total added to the super fund is $2,000.