Hi, I’m Storm.
I was amazed when I first heard about this! I mean, who doesn't love bonus money from the government?
The government has incentives to help boost your super. They give you money. For real.
One of these incentives is called the “government co-contribution”. I did it last year and the government put an extra $500 into my super account.
There are three steps to get the government co-contribution:
- Check if your income per year is less than the threshold. The easiest thing to do is to check your payslip. In financial year 2023, the threshold to get the co-contribution is between $42,016 and $57,016.
So if you earn above $57,016 you can’t get the co-contribution. And if you earn below $42,016, you can get the maximum co-contribution from the government. - Make a personal contribution to your super account. To do this, you will need to transfer money into your super account. Student Super makes this really easy – just login to your Student Super account and head to “My personal contributions” page. This will show your personalised BPAY details so you can make your personal contribution.
The maximum co-contribution from the government is $500. To get this, you need to personally contribute $1,000 to you super account, be working and earn below the lowest threshold. Assuming you earn below the lowest threshold, the government contributes 50% of what you contribute. So if you contribute $500, the government will give you $250, etc... - Lodge your tax return. You have to do this anyway. And there’s nothing special to do on the tax return for this. The government will see your annual income on your tax return and then automatically checks to see if you made any personal contributions to your super account. Your super fund needs to have your Tax File Number in your account for the government to match things up. The government then automatically pays the co-contribution into your super account.
Even better, you can get this year after year if you meet the criteria.
I’ve done this over the last two years. The first time I was pretty skeptical it wouldn’t actually work, so I transferred $100 to my Student Super account just to test. I was earning less than the lowest threshold, so I should’ve got 50% extra from the government.
Later in the year I did my tax return. I didn’t need to add anything extra about this on the tax return – it just worked automatically. Important point though – for it to work automatically I had to have my TFN added to my super account, which I had already done when I signed up
Then a few months later, an extra $50 turned up in my Student Super account. Student Super sent me an email and SMS letting me know it arrived. I was amazed.
The next year I decided to get the maximum co-contribution – so I put in $1,000 into my Student Super account. Where did I find a spare $1,000? Well… I got a tax refund in the previous year and I decided to use that.
I was still earning less than the lowest threshold. Sure enough, after I did my tax return the following year, boom, $500 turned up in my Student Super account.
But it’s not all a happy story...
Now I am a grad and working full time I earn over the threshold… so I am not eligible any more. I really wish I had known about this earlier and done it every year.
If I had done this for 4 years... I don’t even want to think about it!
For more information, Student Super has a “Government Incentives” page. Check it out!
