Salary sacrificing your contributions to SASS can be a way to save on tax. It’s also important to understand how your contributions and your employer contributions will count towards the contributions limits.
Key points
- Making your contributions to SASS via salary sacrifice can save you tax and increase your take home pay
- Your salary sacrifice contributions to SASS as well as a notional amount for your employers contribution, both count towards the annual before-tax contributions cap.
- Most members of the State Authorities Superannuation Scheme (SASS) receive favourable treatment in the before-tax contributions reported. Conditions do apply.
- If SASS is your only super fund, you generally cannot exceed the before-tax contributions cap. It is important to check your statement to see if you have contribution cap protection.
- If you’re making any additional before-tax contributions to another fund, you should ensure total contributions across all your super accounts are within the cap.
Making your contributions tax effective
Making your contributions to SASS via salary sacrifice is a great way to reduce your personal income tax and increase your take home pay. Essentially, you can choose to pay 15% tax on your SASS contributions, instead of paying personal income tax which can be as high as 47%*.
Before-tax contributions to super are those for which 15% contributions tax is paid within the superannuation fund. They include salary sacrifice contributions, a notional amount for your employer contributions to SASS and any other employer contributions.
They may also include insurance premiums paid by your employer through your super and personal contributions you make to another Super fund for which you claim a tax deduction.
There are limits to how much you can contribute to your super before-tax. The cap for before-tax contributions is $30,000 for everyone. Special conditions do apply for SASS members.
Before-tax contribution caps and SASS
Most members of the State Authorities Superannuation Scheme (SASS) receive favourable treatment for concessional contributions reported by the fund to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
If SASS is your only super fund, you will not exceed the before-tax contributions cap if you have contribution cap protection. That’s because of a special condition that applies to defined benefit funds. A SASS member who would otherwise exceed the cap, will only have the amount up to the cap reported to the ATO.
Contribution cap protection
It’s important to check your most recent statement under ‘Your membership details – Contribution cap protection’ or contact the State Super Customer Service to confirm whether the special condition applies to you.
You may lose this special treatment permanently if you have moved to a higher benefit category (see tables below), than the higher benefit category you were in on either 12 May 2009 or 5 September 2006.
Even when the special conditions apply, if you’re making any additional concessional contributions to another fund, you should ensure total contributions across all your super accounts are within the cap.
For more information go to SASS Factsheet 16 Contribution caps and your total superannuation balance.
Calculating your notional employer contributions to SASS
Employer before-tax contributions to SASS are calculated as a percentage of ‘superable’ salary. The actual percentage to use depends on your predecessor scheme (see table below). The Notional employer contributions are added to your salary sacrifice contributions to determine the total before-tax contributions to SASS.
Standard SASS
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| Standard SASS members' contribution rate benefit category | SASS benefit factor | SANCS benefit factor | Percentage to use in formula |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4% or less | 6.0% | 1.2% | 7.2% |
| 5% | 7.2% | 1.2% | 8.4% |
| 6% or more | 8.4% | 1.2% | 9.6% |
SPSSS
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| Former SPSSS members' contribution rate benefit category | SASS benefit factor | SANCS benefit factor | Percentage to use in formula |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3% or less | 6.0% | 1.2% | 7.2% |
| 4% | 7.2% | 1.2% | 8.4% |
| 5% | 8.4% | 1.2% | 9.6% |
| 6% or more | 10.8% | 1.2% | 12% |
NRF members
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| Former NRF members' contribution rate benefit category | SASS benefit factor | SANCS benefit factor | Percentage to use in formula |
|---|---|---|---|
| Over 4.5% to 5.5% | 7.2% | 1.2% | 8.4% |
| Over 5.6% | 8.4% | 1.2% | 9.6% |
Note: Rates for 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025
Your employer contributions once you reach 180 points
If you continue to work after you’ve reached 30 years of scheme membership and reached 180 points, then your employer notional contributions will be 1.2% of your salary leaving you more room within the before-tax contributions cap to get more money into super by making additional before-tax contributions to another super fund.
The cap for after-tax contributions is $120,000 per annum. If you are not making your contributions to SASS via salary sacrifice, then your personal contributions will count towards the after-tax contributions cap.
Whilst you cannot make additional lump sum contributions towards SASS, you could add more to your Super by making additional contributions up to the cap to another Super fund.
In any one year, if you are age 74 or younger on 1 July, you can bring forward contributions for the following 2 years up to $360,000 over three years provided your total super balance is less than $1.66m as at the end of 30 June of the previous financial year.
To learn more about contributions caps go to SASS Fact Sheet 16 Contributions caps and your total superannuation balance.
Tip: You won’t be able to make non-concessional contributions if the total super balance is $1.9 million as at 30 June of the prior financial.
Case study: Anne
Anne, age 54, is a standard SASS member, and has not increased her benefit category on or after 1 April 2010. Her employer concessional contribution to SASS is $150,000 x 9.6% = $14,400 per year and she is also salary sacrificing her 9% SASS contributions ($15,882 per year).
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| Superannuation salary at 31 December 2024 | $150,000 |
|---|---|
| Anne's contributions to SASS | 9% |
| Anne's concessional contributions for the 2024/25 financial year | $30,282 |
While her combined employer and member contributions total $30,282, which is higher than her concessional contribution cap for 2024/25, SASS will only report concessional contributions of $30,000. Any other before-tax superannuation contributions Anne receives to another fund will be excess contributions.
Case study: Jim
Jim is a member of SASS and his only job is with a SASS employer.
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| Superannuation salary at 31 December 2024 | $105,000 |
|---|---|
| Jim's contributions to SASS | 6% |
| Jim's concessional contributions for the 2024/25 financial year | $17,492 |
Jim salary sacrifices his elected 6% personal contributions to SASS. He has confirmed with State Super Customer Service that he is protected by the SASS concessional contributions cap.
Jim’s concessional contributions to SASS total $17,492, this is well within his concessional contributions cap. If Jim’s concessional contributions to SASS had exceeded the cap, he would be deemed to be within the cap anyway because the special condition would apply.
Case study: Joe
Joe’s a member of SASS and his only job is with a SASS employer.
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| Superannuation salary at 31 December 2024 | $115,000 |
|---|---|
| Joe's contributions to SASS | 9% |
| Joe's concessional contributions for the 2024/25 financial year | $21,390 |
Joe is a nurse who is a member of SASS with a salary of $115,000. Joe is contributing 9% to SASS as pre-tax contributions. Joe’s 9% SASS contributions are $10,350 p.a. and his employer SASS concessional contributions are $115,000 x 9.6% = $11,040. Therefore, Joe’s total concessional contributions will be $21,390 for the 2024/25 financial year which is under the $30,000 concessional contributions cap.
Things to consider
Before you salary sacrifice to your super you should consider your current financial situation and how much additional money you can afford to contribute to your super. You generally won't be able to access extra contributions until you retire. Salary sacrifice can be a tax-effective strategy and usually suits middle to higher income earners.
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