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You don’t have to be a financial genius to get the most from your super
Who said superannuation has to be complicated?
By making voluntary contributions into your Mercer Super Trust account, you could help boost your super at retirement.
There are a couple of ways you can make voluntary contributions into your super:
- Post-tax contributions are made out of your take home pay, after you’ve paid tax.
- Pre-tax contributions are made before you pay tax and are usually called salary sacrifice contributions.
A key feature of salary sacrifice contributions is that they are taxed at just 15% rather than your personal marginal tax rate.
Making salary sacrifice contributions
Here’s how you can salary sacrifice into your Mercer Super Trust account:
1. Check whether your employer offers salary sacrifice.
2. Decide how much you’d like to salary sacrifice, 3%, 5% or 7% of your pre-tax salary.
3. Fill out the salary sacrifice form, sign it and hand it to your employer.
Then, congratulate yourself on making what could be one of the smartest financial decisions you’ll ever make!
What are the tax advantages?
This table shows you the way tax is applied to salary, versus salary sacrifice super contributions, if a person were to be offered a 5% pay rise*.
| Pre-tax salary per annum before any pay rise |
Amount pocketed if 5% pay rise is taken as salary |
Amount invested if 5% pay rise is salary sacrificed to super |
"Tax saving" – extra savings in super |
| $80,000 |
$2,740 |
$3,400 |
$660 |
| $130,000 |
$3,932.50 |
$5,525 |
$1,592.50 |
| $180,000 |
$4,815 |
$7,650 |
$2,835 |
Seek advice
If you’re unsure whether making salary sacrifice contributions is right for you, or if you have any questions, call us on 1800 633 403.
More information
Download a fact sheet
Download a salary sacrifice form
* Marginal tax rate on $80,000 of 31.5%; Marginal tax rate on $130,000 of 39.5%; Marginal tax rate on $180,000 of 46.5%; “Tax saving” is calculated by taking the difference between the marginal tax rate and the concessional tax rate on super (15%). Concessional contributions (including employer and salary sacrifice contributions) are limited to $25,000 per person per year, or $50,000 for people turning 50 between 1/07/09 and 30/06/12. Exceeding these limits may result in tax of 46.5% for amounts over the limits.
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