Thirteen plays that advisers actually use, written out completely — the mechanics, the arithmetic, and exactly where each one goes wrong. Nothing is paywalled and nothing is a teaser. Read them, find the two or three that fit your situation, then tell us which one you want running.
The compounding ones. Set these up once and they run in the background every year.
Money going into super as a concessional contribution is taxed at 15% instead of your marginal rate. Your employer's contributions count toward the same annual cap, so the opportunity is the gap between what they put in and the cap — and you either use it by 30 June or lose it, with one exception covered in play 02.
Exceeding the cap triggers excess contributions tax and a paperwork process you don't want. Bonuses land unevenly, so the gap you calculated in August isn't the gap in June. Personal deductible contributions also need a notice of intent lodged with your fund and acknowledged before you lodge your return — miss that form and the deduction simply disappears.
Unused concessional cap carries forward for five years, provided your total super balance was under $500,000 at the previous 30 June. It's the most underused provision in Australian super and it's devastating when a one-off income spike arrives: you bank unused cap in ordinary years, then deploy it all in the year your income jumps.
The $500,000 test is measured at the prior 30 June, so a strong market year can quietly disqualify you before you act. Unused amounts expire oldest-first on a rolling basis, so sequencing matters. And the contribution must be made in the same financial year as the gain — discover this in July and you're a full year too late. This is the one people learn about after settlement.
Interest on your home loan isn't deductible. Interest on money borrowed to produce income is. Debt recycling converts the first into the second without increasing your total debt: pay a lump sum off the mortgage, borrow that same amount back through a separate loan split, and invest it. Same debt level, but a slice now generates a deduction — repeated until the whole mortgage is converted.
The strategy most often destroyed in execution. Deductibility follows the use of the borrowed money, not what secures it — redrawing from your existing loan instead of a clean new split contaminates the whole loan. Depositing borrowed funds into an account holding your own money muddies the trail. Paying investment interest from a mixed account invites apportionment arguments. Get the structure wrong at the start and it isn't tidied up in hindsight.
An offset holds your money beside the loan. Redraw is the loan itself, already repaid down. The interest saved is identical, but they behave completely differently when circumstances change: withdraw from an offset and you're spending your own savings; withdraw the same money from redraw and you've made a fresh borrowing whose deductibility depends on what you spend it on.
Almost nobody decides this deliberately — they take the lender's default years before it matters. Some products present redraw as though it were an offset. Others charge a small fee for a genuine offset and people decline it, forfeiting a far larger benefit later. If savings are already in redraw the position can be improved, but it has to happen before the property is rented.
Where a policy sits changes both what it costs you and how the payout is treated. Life and TPD premiums paid from super come out of concessionally taxed money and never touch your take-home pay. Income protection held personally has premiums that are generally deductible to you. Splitting across both usually beats defaulting everything to one side.
TPD benefits from super can be taxed depending on age and components, and lump sums to someone who isn't a tax dependant can be taxed heavily — so the structure that helps your monthly budget may reduce what your family receives. Default cover inside super is frequently well below what a mortgage and dependants need, and consolidating funds can silently cancel cover you'd never be underwritten for again.
Two people are taxed as two people. Most couples leave this entirely on the table.
Two separate levers. If your spouse earns under the threshold, contributing to their super earns you a tax offset directly. Separately, you can split a portion of your own concessional contributions across to them after the year ends — which doesn't save tax now, but evens the balances, and balance is what governs the carry-forward test, transfer balance caps and eventual pension access.
The offset phases out as their income rises and disappears entirely above the upper threshold, so the $540 is often claimed when only part is available. Splitting has to be applied for with the fund using their form, generally in the financial year after the contributions were made, and once the money has been rolled over or a pension started the window closes. Split too aggressively and you can strand money in the spouse who reaches preservation age later.
The First Home Super Saver Scheme lets you salary sacrifice toward a deposit and later release it. The money goes in taxed at 15% rather than your marginal rate, and comes out taxed at your marginal rate less a 30% offset. For anyone above the lowest bracket, that spread is a meaningful uplift on the same savings effort — you're simply saving in a lower-taxed container.
You must request a determination from the ATO and have the release approved before you sign a contract to buy. Sign first and the money is stuck in super until retirement — this is the single most common way the scheme is lost. Annual and total limits apply, contributions count toward your concessional cap, and release takes weeks, not days, which does not sit comfortably with auction timelines.
Most people find two or three that apply. Send us the numbers and we'll tell you what each is worth for you specifically — and which to do first.
One-off events where the tax outcome is largely decided by timing and structure — usually before the event, not after.
A capital gain is taxed in the year the contract is signed, at the marginal rate of whoever owns the asset. Both are often within your control, and the difference between handling them well and badly frequently exceeds a year of investment returns. Holding beyond twelve months alone halves the taxable gain for individuals.
The twelve months runs contract date to contract date, not settlement — people miss the discount by a fortnight and never realise. Ownership must be established when the asset is acquired; moving it to a lower-taxed spouse just before selling doesn't work and creates its own problem. Carried-forward losses have ordering rules, and a well-timed sale paired with play 02 is worth considerably more than either alone.
Non-concessional contributions are made from after-tax money and aren't taxed going in. The annual cap is $120,000, but if you're under 75 you can bring forward up to three years and contribute $360,000 in a single year. The point isn't a deduction — it's moving a large sum into an environment where earnings are taxed at a maximum of 15% rather than your marginal rate, permanently.
How many years you can bring forward depends on your total super balance at the prior 30 June — get it wrong and contributions are refunded or taxed as excess. Triggering the bring-forward locks your cap for the following two years, so a large contribution now can block a better one next year. And it's a one-way door: money in super generally can't come out until you meet a condition of release, so contributing more than you can afford to lock away is its own mistake.
If your business is under the turnover or net-asset thresholds, a set of concessions applies to the gain on active assets that go far beyond the ordinary 50% discount — including a retirement exemption, a fifteen-year exemption that can wipe the gain entirely, and the ability to move proceeds into super under a separate lifetime cap well above the normal contribution limits. For many owners this is the single largest tax event of their life, and it's almost entirely structurable.
Eligibility turns on tests applied at the moment just before the sale — active asset status, the entity structure, who the significant individuals are, and whether connected entities push you over the thresholds. Restructuring to qualify is legitimate but has to happen well in advance; there is nothing to be done the week before settlement. This is also the one play here where you want your accountant and adviser in the same conversation from the start, not sequentially.
The largest single numbers on this page live here — and they are almost all time-limited.
From age 55 you can contribute up to $300,000 each from the proceeds of selling your main residence — $600,000 for a couple — and it sits outside the non-concessional caps entirely. There's no work test and no upper age limit. Despite the name you don't have to buy anything smaller, or buy at all. It's the largest single contribution opportunity available to most Australians.
The contribution must be made within 90 days of settlement, and that deadline is unforgiving — miss it and the opportunity is gone permanently, since it's once per person for life. The ten-year ownership test is measured precisely. Most importantly, moving money out of your home (exempt from the Age Pension assets test) into super (assessable) can reduce or eliminate a pension entitlement — so the strategy that saves $7,200 of tax can cost more than that in lost pension. That interaction has to be modelled before you sell, not after.
Your super balance is split into a taxable component and a tax-free component. Once you're over 60 and have met a condition of release, withdrawals are tax-free to you — but on death, the taxable component paid to someone who isn't a tax dependant, such as an adult child, is taxed. The strategy is simply to withdraw and immediately re-contribute as a non-concessional contribution, which lands in the tax-free component. Same balance, same owner, a materially smaller tax bill for your children.
The proportioning rule is the trap: a withdrawal comes out of both components in the same ratio as your balance, so you cannot cherry-pick the taxable part and a single pass rarely converts everything. It typically takes several years and careful sequencing. You must be under 75 and within the total super balance limits to re-contribute, the bring-forward rules in play 09 apply, and none of it can be done after death or after capacity is lost — which is exactly when families discover the strategy existed.
From preservation age you can start a transition-to-retirement pension while still employed, drawing between 4% and 10% of the balance each year. Those pension payments are tax-free from 60. Paired with heavy salary sacrifice, you replace salary taxed at your marginal rate with pension income taxed at nothing, while the sacrificed amount is taxed at 15% going in. Your take-home pay is roughly unchanged; your tax bill isn't.
A TTR pension is not retirement phase, so earnings inside it are still taxed at 15% — people set one up expecting tax-free earnings and don't get them until they fully retire or turn 65. The minimum drawdown is compulsory once started, so you're forced to withdraw whether or not you want to. Sacrificing too hard can breach the concessional cap from play 01, and the strategy needs the salary sacrifice and the pension to be sized against each other rather than set up independently.
Rolling old funds into one account is sensible housekeeping — and it cancels the insurance attached to the funds you close. If your health has changed, you may not be able to replace it at any price.
Potentially uninsurableA personal contribution is only deductible if you lodge a notice of intent and your fund acknowledges it before you lodge your return. The money is in. The deduction isn't.
The entire deductionUsing your existing loan's redraw rather than a separate split blends borrowed and personal money. The deduction becomes an apportionment argument you may lose.
Years of deductionsThe determination and release have to be approved before you sign a contract. Sign first and your deposit is locked in super until retirement.
Access to your depositNinety days from settlement, once per person, for life. There is no extension and no second attempt.
$300,000 of capYour home is exempt from the assets test. Super isn't. Moving money between them can quietly cut an Age Pension entitlement by more than the tax you saved.
More than the benefitA contract signed on 28 June instead of 2 July lands the gain in a year you had a bonus, and forfeits pairing it with a carry-forward contribution.
Thousands, on timingSuper doesn't pass under your will. Without a valid binding nomination the trustee decides who receives it — and a lapsed nomination is no nomination at all.
The whole balancePlay 01 — sacrificing the gap between employer contributions and the cap
Play 03 — via a clean split, phased over two years
Play 05 — same cover, premiums moved to the efficient side
Play 04 — costs nothing now, protects deductibility later
Before any investment return, and repeating annually
Selling an asset, expecting a bonus, turning 55, or refinancing — most of these plays have a deadline attached, and several can't be fixed after the fact. Worth a conversation now rather than in July.
Loan splits established properly from the outset, contribution notices lodged and acknowledged, nominations executed, cover placed on the right side of super. The irreversible decisions, done once, done right.
Fixed fee, quoted before we startWhich play runs first, and in which financial year. Contract dates aligned with contribution years, the 90-day downsizer window diarised, carry-forward amounts used before they expire.
Included in the set-up feeMost of these fail at the handover between adviser, lender and accountant — plays 10 and 12 especially. We deal with all three directly so nothing falls into the gap.
IncludedCaps move, your income moves, carry-forward amounts expire on a schedule. If your position genuinely changes each year a review earns its fee. If it doesn't, we'll tell you so.
Optional, cancel any timeName the one you want running and we'll tell you what's involved, what it's worth in your situation, and what we'd charge to implement it. If it isn't worth doing, we'll say that instead.
Get It ImplementedPick the play you're interested in and tell us roughly where you're at. We'll come back with what it's worth in your circumstances and a fixed price to execute it.
We'll respond within 24 business hours. All enquiries are confidential. General advice only.
Milestone Capital operates as an Authorised Representative. Our AFSL and Authorised Representative details are available on request — email lachlan.comport@gmail.com. Everything on this page is general information only. It has been prepared without regard to your objectives, financial situation or needs, and is not a recommendation to adopt or refrain from any strategy. The worked examples are illustrations of how the relevant rules operate using stated assumptions; they are not projections and will not reflect your position. Tax, superannuation and social security settings, caps, thresholds and age tests change, including by indexation. Several strategies described here carry statutory deadlines and eligibility tests, and some are irreversible once actioned. Before acting on anything here you should obtain personal advice and consider your own circumstances, and read any relevant Product Disclosure Statement. Milestone Capital may receive commissions from insurers when policies are placed.