How does the concessional (before-tax) contribution cap work if I have more than one super fund?

Your concessional contributions cap is the total amount of before-tax contributions you can make in a financial year before you may have to pay extra tax. If you have a GESB Super account and a West State Super account, or a GESB account and an account with another taxed fund, and you make concessional contributions to both, these contributions will be counted towards the cap. However, once you exceed the cap, only additional contributions made to your GESB Super account and other taxed funds over the cap will be taxed at the higher tax rate. Amounts over the cap that are contributed to untaxed funds, such as West State Super, won’t count and therefore won’t be subject to extra tax.

For example, if you make $20,000 in before-tax contributions to your West State Super account and $20,000 to your GESB Super account (including your employer Superannuation Guarantee contributions and any voluntary amounts), $10,000 will be taxed at the higher rate as it will have exceeded the $30,000¹ cap for the financial year. However, if you then add another $20,000 to your West State Super account, this won’t be subject to extra tax as it is not counted as exceeding the cap. If you made a further $5,000 in concessional contributions to your GESB Super account - or another taxed fund - that money will be counted as exceeding the cap and be taxed at a higher rate.

For this reason, it’s important you consider before-tax contributions in all your super funds when tracking your contributions, if you have more than one fund or account. You can track contributions to your GESB accounts in Member Online.

1 For the 2024/25 financial year. The concessional contributions cap is indexed annually in line with Average Weekly Ordinary Time Earnings in increments of $2,500 rounded down.