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Calculating your Total Super Balance

The May 2016 Federal Budget introduced a range of measures designed to improve the Australian superannuation system and these were passed into legislation in November 2016. This article refers to some of the changes described in our previous article “Super – The biggest reforms in a decade”.  One of the changes was the introduction of the “total super balance” (TSB).

Your TSB is relevant when working out:

  • your eligibility to carry forward unused concessional (before tax) contributions
  • your eligibility for the non-concessional (after tax) contributions cap and for the bring forward of non-concessional contributions
  • your eligibility for the government co-contribution
  • your eligibility for the tax offset for spouse contributions.

The TSB will generally be calculated on 30 June and it applies for the first time on 30 June 2017 to determine eligibility for the above list of measures. SMSF trustees and trustees of small APRA funds will also need to know their members’ TSBs to determine whether they can use the segregated assets method to calculate exempt current pension income (ECPI).

Calculation method

The calculation of your TSB is not just a matter of adding up all your super benefits. To calculate your TSB add the following together:

  • the accumulation phase value of your super interests. Note: this includes Transition to Retirement Income Streams that are not in the retirement phase.
  • if you have a super income stream in the retirement phase, add your “transfer balance” or your “modified transfer balance” (only if it is greater than zero). Note: the modified transfer balance includes the current value of account based income streams.
  • the amount of any rollover super benefit not already reflected in the accumulation phase value of your super interests or your transfer balance, that is rollovers in transit between super funds on 30 June.

Now subtract any personal injury or structured settlement contributions that have been paid into your super.

Transitional provisions apply for working out the retirement phase value of your TSB at the end of 30 June 2017 as the transfer balance account only commenced 1 July 2017. The transitional arrangements apply so that your transfer balance at the end of 30 June 2017 is equal to:

  • the sum of your transfer balance credits just after the start of 1 July 2017 less
  • any debits in relation to payment splits (if applicable)

This is subject to the transfer balance modifications for account-based income streams.

We appreciate that this is a complicated topic and that super fund trustees may need some assistance with calculating members’ TSBs. Please call us if you would like further explanations or assistance with calculations.

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