1 First question
I am a married woman 69 years old and still working full time.
I have about $400,000 in super, and I am considering whether to continue working full-time or part-time once I turn 67 in May.
My partner has no income or super and is retired due to illness. We pay $500 a week to rent a house. What financial possibilities do I have?
Depending on your amount of assets, you would be eligible for the full age pension at age 67 if you have little outside of your super.
As of May 2026, each member of a couple receives a full age pension of $905 every two weeks.
Depending on your salary, you can be subject to an income test if you continue to work after the pension age. Nonetheless, it usually makes sense to continue working if you can because doing so will increase your income and contribute more to your super.
Couples can earn up to $380 per two weeks (combined). The rate of age pension payments is unaffected by income up to this threshold. In addition, the government encourages older Australians to keep working under the ‘Work Bonus’
The first $300 of employment income as well as qualified self employment revenue is excluded from the pension income test every two weeks while using the Work Bonus.
As a result, as long as at least $300 comes from employment, you can get up to $680 every two weeks without it affecting your age pension. You and your partner would lose $0.25 each every two weeks for every $1 over this.
This could significantly increase your income if you are able to continue working at least part-time.
Additionally, you should qualify for up to $206 in rent assistance every two weeks.
2 Question
After selling our home, my spouse and I want to benefit from the $300,000 downsizer contribution and the $360,000 non-concessional contribution bring-forward rule.
My wife is 74 and I am 73, which worries me. I am aware that at the age of 75, no more voluntary super contributions are permitted.
Can we benefit from both the bring-forward and downsizer rules as we are still under 75 years old, even though the three years will put us above 75?
I have good news for you.
There is no upper age limit for downsizer super contributions they can be made starting at age 57
There are undoubtedly other prerequisites, such as having owned the house for at least ten years and using it as your primary source of resistance for at least a portion of that time.
After settlement, the extra contribution is to be given within ninety days.
There are additional guidelines for non-concessional (after-tax) payments. As you noted out, you cannot make these contributions after age 75. In theory, you have up to 28 days from the end of the month you turned 75 to make the donation. Therefore, you have until October 28 if you turned 75 in September.
$120,000 is the annual non-concessional cap. Nevertheless, you can use the bring forward rule to contribute up to $360,000, or three years' worth, all at once.
Indeed, even if you are 74 years old and do not have any money to "bring" forward, you can still accomplish this. Thus when the downsizer and non concessional criteria are combined you and your spouse might each contribute $660,000. As long as you have to funds
A few points to remember. First, for 2026–2027, the non-concessional ceiling will be $130,000. This is thus $390,000 under the bring forward (the downsizer cap remains at $300,000).
Lastly, your total super balance as of the previous June 30 must fall under specific bounds in order to employ the bring forward rule and make non-concessional contributions. For the fiscal years 2025–2026 and 2026–2027, these are displayed below:
3 Question
My spouse and I own our home and live together. She receives a super payment of more than $653 every two weeks. Additionally, she gets a $540 Centrelink payout every two weeks.
I get a $562+ Centrelink payment in addition to a $141 super payment every two weeks. Why is my Centrelink payment so meager?
Regardless of who owns the assets or receives the income, Centrelink treats couples as a single family and assesses them jointly.
After adding up all of a couple's assets and income, an asset and income test is used. Next, the test that yields the lower payment is used.
As a result, if you are both eligible and of pension age, you should receive the same amount as a couple.
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