SMSF & Superannuation

Superannuation is governed by caps, and every cap has a consequence: contribute above the concessional or non-concessional caps and there is extra tax to deal with; move more than the transfer balance cap into retirement phase and there is an excess to unwind; and under Division 296, total balances above $3 million now attract an additional layer altogether. This collection keeps the current-year figures and the compliance machinery in one place — the caps, the cut-off dates, and the true legislative status of measures that spent years as proposals.

It serves two overlapping audiences: anyone contributing to super who needs the current caps and the traps around them, and SMSF trustees, who carry a compliance calendar of their own on top. Trustee obligations are unforgiving in a specific way — many deadlines belong to the fund rather than the member, and missing them puts the fund’s complying status in question rather than just enlarging a tax bill.

Superannuation contribution caps for 2026-27 records what changed on 1 July 2026 and how the carry-forward and bring-forward mechanics interact with the new figures. The transfer balance cap explained covers how the cap works in practice for pensions in 2026-27. For trustees, the SMSF compliance calendar lays out the year’s obligations in date order, from auditor appointment through to lodgement.

Two regulatory updates matter enough to be tracked as their own resources. Division 296 — the $3 million super tax — is now law, and the resource explains what was enacted, who is affected and from when, replacing the speculation that surrounded the measure for years. SMSF borrowing and business real property covers what Schedule 5 changed for limited recourse borrowing arrangements. Higher earners should read these alongside Division 293 in the Tax & Accounting collection.

Read together, the five references form a sequence rather than a menu. Start with the contribution caps, because money must enter the fund correctly before anything else matters; the transfer balance cap comes next, governing how much of what has accumulated can move into retirement phase. Division 296 sits above both — a balance-level layer that can change the calculus of contributing at all — while the compliance calendar and the LRBA resource belong to trustees specifically: one keeps the fund’s year on schedule, the other governs how it may borrow. A contribution decided without the Division 296 position in view, or a borrowing considered outside the compliance calendar, is a decision made with half the picture.

Superannuation figures are indexed, legislated and occasionally frozen, so every resource here states the financial year its numbers belong to and the date they were last verified against the ATO and the legislation itself — and cap figures from earlier years are never silently overwritten; they move to the archive. Start with the contribution caps resource before any large contribution, and the compliance calendar at the start of each financial year if you are a trustee. For actual decisions — contribution strategy, pension commencement, fund structure — the practice’s SMSF services exist because those calls genuinely depend on your circumstances.