You can make a difference to the way you and your spouse build your super for retirement – and reduce your tax.

If your partner’s income is $10,800 or less, you can reduce your tax by up to 18% on the first $3,000 you contribute to your partner’s fund from your after-tax income. An 18% tax break means you would get $540 back on the $3,000 you contributed to your partner’s fund.

This tax deduction decreases as your partner’s income increases. And you can’t claim it if your partner’s income exceeds $13,800.

There’s no limit to the after-tax income you can contribute to your partner’s fund. This may be very helpful if your partner has a low income or is not working.

Important points about spouse contributions:

• The spouse contribution tax break applies to people who are married or who are in a de facto relationship.
• To qualify for the tax offset, you must both be Australian residents, and the spouse receiving the contributions must be under 65 years of age (or aged 65 to 69 and have worked for 40 hours during no more than 30 consecutive days in that financial year).
• Spouse contributions are treated as undeducted contributions and are added to your tax-free component, which means they aren’t subject to contributions tax and won’t be taxed when withdrawn from the fund at retirement.

Getting started

Check whether your employer allows spouse contributions.

If they do, you’ll need to consider how much you want to contribute from your after-tax salary – usually you can nominate the sum as either a percentage or a fixed dollar amount.

You can then claim the tax offset in your tax return.