Boost your joint retirement income

Sharing your superannuation contributions with your spouse could boost your joint retirement income.

Important information about splitting your super with your spouse

Changes to super may have made contribution splitting a less attractive option for some members. The new rules mean:

• Superannuation benefits paid out to members aged 60 and over are now tax free
• After-tax contributions can no longer be split,
• Reasonable Benefit Limits have now been abolished.

Make sure you understand how these changes affect you before making a decision to split your contributions.

Why split contributions?

Despite these changes, there are several good reasons to split your super with your spouse:

• If your spouse is older than you, you may get earlier access to super benefits. This is because your spouse may be able to access their savings at an earlier date than you could if the contributions were kept in your account.
• If your spouse is younger than you, you can defer having those contributions counted under the asset and income test. This may give you access to a higher age pension.
• If your spouse does not have enough in their account balance to apply for insurance, increasing their balance (to at least the minimum required) may give them access to the cover they need.

How it works

If you have an accumulation account, you can place some of your contributions made in the previous year into a spouse account.

For the 2008/2009 tax year this means that you can split:

• Before-tax contributions, including employer and salary sacrifice made between 1 July 2007 and 30 June 2008, and
• After-tax contributions made between 1 July 2007 and 30 June 2008.

Who can receive your split contributions

Contributions can be split with a spouse who is:

• under preservation age (currently 55), regardless of whether they’re working or not, or
• between preservation age and 65 and who is not permanently retired.

Contributions cannot be split with a spouse aged 65 or over.

You can split your contributions with your husband, wife or a de facto partner who is living with you – however, current legislation does not allow you to split contributions with a same-sex partner.

How to split your contributions

To split contributions made between 1 July 2007 and 30 June 2008, you must lodge a Contribution splitting application form with UniSuper by 30 June 2009.

If you do not transfer these contributions by 30 June 2009, you will not be able to transfer them in future.

You will be able to split contributions made between 1 July 2008 and 30 June 2009, by lodging a Contribution splitting application form on or after 1 July 2009.