For many of the 806,000 Australians planning to retire within five years, tax planning might feel like a maze they’ve already lost their way in.

Susan Maushart was one of them. At 67, she assumed she’d left it too late to be strategic about her tax position in retirement. “To be honest, I found the rules and caps to be super confusing,” she says.

But after receiving advice from her Industry SuperFund and important information from Centrelink, Susan realised she had “misunderstood some important rules – while others had actually changed since the last time I looked.” She discovered she could still plan her workload, access extra tax savings and make the most of her upcoming inheritance – with some simple tweaks and thoughtful planning.

Peter Treseder, education manager at Australian Super, advises that knowledge is key. “I wouldn’t say that retirement is a game, but if you’re playing a game, you need to know the rules,” he says. Here are the key ones worth knowing – and how to make them work for you.

Annual caps on super contributions

The rules around super contributions aren’t exactly light reading, but they’re worth getting your head around – because buried in the fine print is more flexibility than most people realise.

There are two types of contributions, each with their own annual cap. Before-tax (concessional) contributions  – your employer’s super guarantee, salary sacrifice, and personal tax-deductible contributions – are generally taxed at 15% when they enter your fund. The annual cap for 2025–26 is $30,000. After-tax (non-concessional) contributions are made from money you’ve already paid tax on, so they go in tax-free. The annual cap is $120,000.

Exceed either cap and you may face additional tax. However, the system has more wiggle room than it first appears.

The carry-forward rule lets you look backwards. If your total super balance is under $500,000 as of June 30 of the previous financial year, you can use any unused before-tax caps from the previous five years – catching up on contributions you didn’t make at the time. The bring-forward rule lets you look ahead: it applies to after-tax contributions and allows you to pull forward up to two years’ worth of future caps, meaning up to $360,000 could flow into super in a single year if your total super balance as of June 30 of the previous financial year is under $1.76 million.

As Treseder puts it: “With the carry-forward rule, you ask, ‘What didn’t I do?’ With the bring-forward rule, the government lets you ask, ‘What could I do?’”

For Susan, one key discovery was learning the age limit for non-concessional contributions had been extended to 75 – not 67 as she’d assumed. “I thought that ship had sailed for me,” she says. “I was delighted to discover it had been called back to port.”

This opens up real possibilities for anyone sitting on a lump sum from an inheritance, property sale or other windfall. “Say I get an inheritance of $120,000. I can put that into super and it goes in all tax-free,” says Treseder. And thanks to the bring-forward rule, a larger sum of up to $360,000 could go in tax-free, too.

Transition to retirement: turning tax into savings

For workers aged 60 and above, transition to retirement allows them to draw up to 10% of superannuation annually, tax-free, while still earning an income from work.

The real magic happens when combined with salary sacrificing. “Potentially, I could take $100 out of super,” Treseder explains. “To get that $100 in the bank as regular income, if I’m the average Australian, I’d probably need to earn $150 because I’d lose roughly a third in tax. But if I salary sacrifice that $150 into super, I only pay 15% tax ($22.50). So I’m taking $100 out, but putting $127.50 back in. I’ve turned tax into savings.”

The downsizer contribution: a generous exception

For Australians over 55 selling property they’ve owned for more than a decade and lived in at some point, the downsizer contribution sits entirely outside the contribution caps mentioned before. Up to $300,000 per person (or $600,000 for couples) can flow into super from the property sale.

The name is something of a misnomer: the new property needn’t actually be smaller. “Most people think you have to downsize – if I sold a million-dollar house, and bought a $700,000 house, I could put $300,000 into super. If I sold a million-dollar house, and bought another million dollar house, I could still put $300,000 into super,” Treseder explains.

“The rule doesn’t specify that the funding has to come from the sale of the house. The funding could come from anywhere: money you have in the bank, from the sale of another asset, an inheritance, property sale, or other windfall.”

There’s no age limit – even those over 75 can use it. But it’s a one-time opportunity, so choose wisely when to use it.