"I thought super was tax free after 60."
It is, while you are alive and drawing on it. Death is a different set of rules entirely, and the concession you have spent thirty years earning does not survive you unless the money is going to a spouse.
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Don't lose over $200,000. We'll show you your super death benefits tax options.
Leave your superannuation to an adult child and the Australian Taxation Office takes — of the taxable component before they see a cent of it — — where there is insurance in the fund. It is not a death duty, nobody sends a warning letter, and almost all of it can be removed while you are still here.
An adviser will work it out for $3,300 to $6,600, over several weeks and two or three appointments. We do it in three minutes — every lawful option priced on your own balance and put in order.
- Free estimate. No card, no sign up
- Full report $249 — an adviser charges $3,300+
- Ask the report questions in plain English — optional, and it never sees your name
- Built on the 1 July 2026 caps and rates
30 second estimate
Three inputs for a quick estimate:
$
—
The tax on it today
$—
before anybody inherits it
Still removable while you are alive
$—
—
A rough guide only. The full calculator asks a few more questions and prices every lawful option.
If this is you
If nobody has ever mentioned this to you,
that is not your fault.
There is no letter, no notice and no line on any statement warning that this is coming. The fund administers, the accountant sees the tax return rather than the nomination form, and the whole thing only becomes visible on the one day nothing can be done about it. Most people we hear from say the same five things.
"I don't know what a taxable component is."
It is on your member statement, beside a second figure called the tax free component, and it is the only number that decides the size of this. Almost nobody has ever looked at it, because until now there was no reason to.
"My kids are my dependants, surely."
Under one Act they are, which is why the fund may pay them directly. Under the tax Act an adult child who is not financially dependent is not, so the money is taxed on the way. Two definitions, one word.
"There's life cover in there too."
Then a fraction of the whole benefit — the balance as well as the cover — is taxed at the higher of the two rates rather than the lower one, under a formula almost nobody outside the industry has heard of. It disappears at 65, and it is largest against the youngest.
"Can't the executor sort it out afterwards?"
No. The components are fixed as at the date of death and no executor, beneficiary or fund can restructure them. That is the whole reason this page exists rather than a page for families dealing with an estate.
So we built the thing that was missing.
You type in what you have. We apply the actual published rules, work out every lawful way of reducing the tax, and put them in order by what reaches your beneficiaries. No jargon, no appointment, no sales call, and no personal recommendation.
Your fund won't tell you
A superannuation fund works out the components and pays the benefit. It has no duty
to tell you what the tax on it would be, or that you could change it.
The tax office won't tell you
It publishes the rates and collects the tax. Nothing in the system flags a member
whose balance is about to be taxed on the way to a non-dependant.
An adviser will — for $3,300 to $6,600
A one-off Statement of Advice, over several weeks. That is the right call for a lot
of people, and it comes with a personal recommendation this service is not licensed
to make. Most people first just need the number.
Three questions, thirty seconds, and you will know roughly where you stand. It costs nothing.
The loss
Two families. The same $920,000.
$218,720 apart.
Both leave everything to two adult children. Both have the same balance, the same return and the same twenty years. One of them looked at the components in time and the other never knew there was anything to look at.
Never looked
The Fairbairns
- Left the balance exactly where it was for twenty years
- 92% of it taxable component, and rising every year
- Nominated the two sons directly, so the Medicare levy applied
- Never asked the fund for the component split
Reaches the two sons
$2,461,481
Looked in time
The Okonkwos
- Ran a bring-forward re-contribution every three years
- Converted $1,074,539 out of the taxable component
- Nominated the estate, so no Medicare levy on what was left
- Re-checked the split with the fund after every cycle
Reaches the two children
$2,680,201
Same balance. Same children. One family lost this.
$218,720
The Fairbairns handed $489,084 to the tax office and the Okonkwos handed
$270,364, on identical money. Neither family did anything wrong and
neither did anything clever — there are seven lawful arrangements
here and the Fairbairns were never shown any of them, so they took the one that happens by
default.
The report that stops this being you costs $249.
Both households are invented. What is real is everything else: the rates in Division 302 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, the contribution caps for 2026-27, and the arithmetic, all of which this calculator applies to whatever figures you give it. See how the re-contribution strategy alone moves it.
The alternatives
Three ways to find out what this costs.
Two of them cost you.
| Guess What most people do |
Hire an expert A licensed financial adviser |
Super Death Benefits Tax Calculator This calculator |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| What it costs | Nothing now, six figures later |
$3,300 – $6,600 | $249 |
| How long it takes | An afternoon of worrying | Four to eight weeks | Under 3 minutes |
| Every option priced | |||
| Working shown line by line | Usually not | ||
| A personal recommendation |
The clock
Three dates that change what this costs you
None of them is a sale and none of them is invented. Two are in the legislation and the third is on your own birthday, and after that one there is nothing left to do.
The last day a contribution counts for this year
A contribution counts in the year the fund receives it, not the year it is sent. A transfer made on 30 June that clears on 2 July belongs to the next year, and a whole year of conversion capacity is gone. The cap is — a year, or — using the bring-forward rule. How the bring-forward rule works.
When the caps and thresholds move
The non-concessional cap is indexed to average weekly ordinary time earnings and the transfer balance cap to the consumer price index, so the whole scale shifts. Above a total superannuation balance of — no contribution can be accepted at all. These figures are the — ones.
The day it closes for good
A fund cannot accept a non-concessional contribution more than 28 days after the end of the month in which the member turns that age. Every other limit here can reopen if a balance falls or a cap is indexed. This one never does. What a condition of release is.
The report
The Death Benefits Tax Report
The free estimate tells you the tax as things stand and names every option. This is the part that prices them. Up to thirteen sections and fourteen charts, on your own figures, with every working shown so you can check it or argue with it.
Free — tells you there is a decision
- The tax on your balance as it stands today, exactly
- Which rules switch on for you, and which do not
- Every lawful option named, with what each one would involve
- How much of the tax is removable, as a band
- Whether a cap, an age limit or a condition of release is blocking you
What stops the loss — $249
- What each option leaves your beneficiaries, to the dollar
- Every option ranked, on one stated measure
- The re-contribution ladder cycle by cycle, and where it stops paying
- The exact Medicare levy saving from the estate route
- Your untaxed element, worked out on your own service period
- The year by year projection of both components
- The point at which holding it outside super stops being worth it
- The assistant, on your own figures, with no limit
- The whole thing as a PDF you can print, charts included
See a real one, free — an invented household run all the way through, with the open half exactly as a customer sees it, and the assistant live on it for two questions.
How it works
Your super death benefits tax in three steps
If you can read a member statement, you can use this. Simple mode asks six questions. Advanced is there if you want to see and change every assumption.
Tell us what you have
Your balance, the taxable component from your statement, who it would go to, any insurance in the fund and your age. That is all. No name, no tax file number, no member number, no bank details — nothing you would not say out loud in a queue.
See the tax on it, free
The exact figure as things stand today, which rules apply to you, every lawful option named with what it would involve, and a band showing how much of the tax is still removable. No card and no sign up.
Find out which option is worth what
$249 opens the full report: every option priced and put in order, the ladder cycle by cycle, and the working behind all of it. PDF included, ready to hand to an adviser or a solicitor.
Built on Division 302 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997
Section 302-145 for the rates, section 302-195 for who counts as a dependant, section 307-290 for the untaxed element, and the ATO's published caps and thresholds for 2026-27.
Every working shown
Nothing is a black box. Every figure in the report carries the arithmetic that produced it, including the formula behind the untaxed element.
Not advice, and we say so
We are not licensed to tell you what to do with your superannuation, and the arithmetic is the part almost everybody is missing anyway. The components of your interest are worked out by your fund, and its figures govern.
Refunded if it does not fit
If the report does not apply to your circumstances, tell us what went wrong within 14 days and it is refunded in full.
Included with the report
And if you do not follow something,
just ask it.
Every report comes with an assistant that has read your report — your balance, your components, your options, your numbers — and answers questions about it in plain English. Not a search box and not a help page. It knows what your report says because it has been given it.
Ask Agent
Why is $489,084 coming out of this? I thought super was tax free.
It is tax free to you, and to a spouse. Your two sons are not death benefits dependants for tax purposes, so the taxable component of the benefit — $2,876,965 by year 20 on these figures — is taxed at 15% plus the 2% Medicare levy on the way to them. The tax free component of $73,600 passes untouched, and it is still exactly $73,600 in twenty years because it never grows.
What does "proportioning rule" mean in section 07?
It means a withdrawal has to come out of both components in the same proportions as the balance. You cannot take out only the taxable part. So $390,000 out of a balance that is 92% taxable takes $358,800 of taxable component with it — and that $358,800 is what the re-contribution converts.
An example of the kind of answer it gives, on the sample report's figures.
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It has your report, not a script Why is this taxed at all? What would happen if I died next year instead? Why does cycle four convert so much less than cycle one? It answers from your own figures and quotes them back.
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Plain English, on a subject that is anything but It is built for this one subject and told to explain rather than impress — no abbreviation without the meaning attached, short answers, and no lecture.
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Entirely optional. Use it or ignore it. It sits behind one button on your report and does nothing until you press it. Nothing in the report is held back from somebody who never opens it, and nothing is sent anywhere unless you ask it something.
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It is never told who you are What it receives is the figures on your report — amounts and categories. Not your name, not your email address, not your account, and never a member number, tax file number or bank detail, because we do not hold those. The name you can put on the report cover is optional and is not part of what it is given.
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Nothing is kept The conversation stays in your browser tab and is gone when you close it. We record that a question was asked so we know the feature is used — never what it said. Section 5 of the privacy policy sets out exactly what does and does not travel.
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It explains. It does not advise. It will tell you what the rules say, what each option is worth and where the figures come from, and it will not tell you what to do — the same line the report itself holds. Nothing here is personal financial advice.
Pricing
$249, against a bill that runs to six figures
One payment, no expiry, nothing to renew, and we never keep your card. It opens the whole report and lets you redo the sums as often as you like — which matters here, because the caps are indexed every July and a ladder is run over a decade.
The only thing you can lose here is the price of the pass — and you cannot lose that either.
If it does not fit your situation, tell us what went wrong within 14 days and we refund you in full.
Prices in Australian dollars. Paid securely through PayPal — card or PayPal balance, no account needed. See a sample report before you decide.
Questions
The questions everyone asks first
An adult child who is not financially dependent on you is not a death benefits dependant for tax purposes. The tax free component of your super reaches them untouched, and the taxable component is taxed at up to 15% plus the 2% Medicare levy — 17% in all. Any untaxed element, which usually comes from life insurance held inside the fund, is taxed at up to 30% plus the levy, or 32%.
No, and this is not one. Australia abolished estate duties in 1979. This is income tax on a superannuation death benefit under Division 302 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, charged only on the taxable component and only where the recipient is not a death benefits dependant. It behaves like a death duty for the households it lands on, which is why so few of them see it coming.
Most of it usually can, while the member is alive and has met a condition of release. Withdrawing and re-contributing under the non-concessional cap converts taxable component into tax free component — $130,000 a year, or $390,000 using the bring-forward rule — and directing the benefit to the estate rather than straight to the beneficiary removes the Medicare levy. Nothing can be done after death.
Because the fund has never paid tax on it. Where a fund deducts the premiums, section 307-290 takes a fraction of the whole lump sum and makes it an untaxed element, taxed at 30% plus the levy rather than 15% plus the levy. The fraction is the days left to age 65 over the service period plus those days, so it is largest against the youngest members and disappears entirely at 65 — and it reaches the balance as well as the cover.
2% of the taxable component going to non-dependants. The Medicare levy is charged when a death benefit is paid to an individual and is not imposed on the trustee of a deceased estate, so the same money reaching the same people through a will is taxed 15% rather than 17%. What it costs is that money in an estate is exposed to a family provision claim and to the estate's creditors, and waits for probate.
There is no version of this that can be fixed later.
A withdrawal, a re-contribution, a nomination and a will can all be done in an afternoon, and every one of them stops being possible on the same day. The components of your superannuation are fixed as at the date of death, a fund has to pay the benefit out as soon as practicable, and no executor, beneficiary or fund can change any of it. Three minutes now is the cheapest three minutes in the whole process.
No card. No sign up. Your answer on the next screen.
Your balance and one figure off your member statement is all it takes.
Super Death Benefits Tax Calculator
Prices every lawful way of cutting this tax on one measure — what actually reaches your beneficiaries — including the re-contribution ladder, the estate nomination and the 2% nobody mentions.
Six questions. At the end you will know the tax on your own superannuation, and how much of it is still removable.
Step 1
Just started
Caps and rates as at —.
Your estimate
The tax on your superannuation, and how much of it is still removable
Which rules apply to you
The part that decides how much of it they keep
Your family could lose $0
How much of the tax on your superannuation is still removable while you are alive.
A one-off Statement of Advice
$3,300 – $6,600
Finding out afterwards
—
This report, right now
$249
See what each option is worth — unlock the full report
You can provide a different email to use as your login - or the PayPal one
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Refundable
Nothing renews
And you can ask it questions. Your report comes with an assistant that has read it and explains any figure in plain English — if you want it. It is given the amounts on your report, never your name or your email, and the conversation stays in your browser.
The only thing you can lose here is the price of the pass — and you cannot lose that either.
If it does not fit your situation, tell us what went wrong within 14 days and
we refund you in full.
Not deciding today?
Send this estimate to yourself — free
The tax on your own balance, the arrangements that reduce it, and a link back to your figures so you do not have to type them again. It is also the version to forward to whoever else needs to see it.
One email, then only if the caps change or a deadline is close. Unsubscribe in one click. We never sell your address.
While there is still time to change it
Find out what your children will actually pay
Superannuation left to an adult child is taxed at up to 17%, and up to 32% where there is insurance in the fund. On a seven figure balance that is six figures gone, and almost all of it can be removed while you are alive. This report prices every lawful way of doing it on your own figures.
The only thing you can lose here is $249 — and you cannot lose that either.
If it does not fit your situation, tell us what went wrong within 14 days and we refund you
in full. See a sample report before you buy.
Before you decide
Yes, it is included, and using it is entirely your choice. It sits behind one button on your report and does nothing until you press it — nothing in the report is held back from somebody who never opens it.
When you do ask it something, what it receives is the figures on your report: amounts and categories. Not your name, not your email address, not your account, and never a Medicare number, tax file number or bank detail — we do not hold those in the first place. The name you can put on the report cover is optional and is not part of what it is given. The conversation stays in your browser tab and is gone when you close it, and we record that a question was asked without recording what it said.
Section 5 of the privacy policy sets out exactly what does and does not travel, including who processes it.
No. You pay once and the access is yours. There is no subscription and nothing renews. PayPal handles the payment, so we never even see your card number.
Yes, and it will tell you why that one figure matters more than anything else on the form. Most balances built from employer contributions and salary sacrifice are 90% to 100% taxable component, so a report run on that assumption is close. Your fund will confirm the exact split in writing, and your access never expires, so you can run it again with the real number at no further cost.
No, and it never calls one option the best. It applies the published rules to the figures you enter, prices every lawful arrangement, and ranks them on one stated measure — what reaches your beneficiaries. Which one to take is your decision, and a licensed adviser is the person who can recommend one. The report is built to be handed to them.
Yes. Put their age and their balance in rather than yours — every question on the form is about the member whose superannuation it is. It is one of the most common ways this calculator is used, and your access covers as many scenarios as you want to run.
Super Death Benefits Tax Calculator provides information, not financial product advice. We are not licensed to give personal financial advice and we never tell you which option to pick. What we do is apply the published rules to the figures you enter and show you what they produce, with every working visible. Your real position is set by the components your superannuation fund works out under the legislation, by the nomination you have lodged with that fund, and by your will. Those three govern, and every one of them is worth confirming in writing before acting on anything here.
Checkout
The full report opens the moment the payment clears, on the figures you have already entered. Nothing to install, nothing to renew, and your access never expires.
What you are getting
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Worked examples
Eleven households. Eleven real answers.
Every figure on this page is worked out live, by the same engine that builds the paid report, against the caps and rates in force on —. Nothing here is typed in and nothing here is invented except the people. If a cap is indexed tomorrow, this page changes tomorrow.
First, the three things nobody explains
1
Your super has two halves, and only one of them is taxed
The tax free component is money you have already paid tax on. The taxable component is everything else — employer contributions, salary sacrifice and every dollar the fund has ever earned. Your member statement shows both.
2
An adult child is not a dependant for tax
They are under the superannuation law, which is why a fund can pay them directly. They are not under the tax law, so the taxable component is taxed on the way to them. A spouse is, and pays nothing.
3
The exposed half grows and the safe half does not
The tax free component is a fixed number of dollars for good. Every dollar the fund earns goes on the other side of the line, so the share exposed to the tax rises every year whether anybody does anything or not.
Everything below is those three facts in real dollars, for eleven different households. Worked out on the current caps and rates.
None of these is you.
Your own figure turns on four things none of these households can tell you: the split between your two components, who your nomination actually names, whether there is insurance inside your fund, and how many years there are before the contribution age limit. Three minutes and you will have all four.
Death Benefits Tax
The Death Benefits
Tax Report
Prepared for Margaret Hollis
Your options, side by side
Every lawful way of changing what Margaret's two sons actually receive from her $920,000 of superannuation, and what each one leaves them in 20 years. Same balance, same beneficiaries, same assumed return — the difference is only in how much of it is still taxable component on the day it is paid, and who it is paid to. Open Show Details on any of them — those panels are live on this page.
The short version
Three numbers. Everything after this explains where they came from.
Tax if she died today
$143,888
on $920,000 of death benefit, nothing done
Tax in 20 years, nothing done
$489,084
the balance grows and the taxable component grows with it
Still removable
$218,720
the ladder and the estate nomination, against doing nothing
Why the second figure is so much larger than the first. The tax free component of a superannuation interest is a fixed number of dollars. Every dollar the fund earns lands in the taxable component, so the exposed share of the balance rises every year on its own: 92% of the benefit today, 98% in 20 years. Section 06 draws it.
What your death benefit is made of
Three parts, and only two of them are ever taxed. $73,600 of tax free component reaches Margaret's sons whoever they are; $846,400 of taxable component is 92.0% of the benefit today, and it is the part this whole report is about.
Where to check this. A member statement shows the tax free and taxable components side by side, usually on the same screen as the balance. The fund works them out under the legislation and its figures govern — every number in this report is arithmetic on the $846,400 Margaret entered.
Only two things ever create a tax free component. Contributions made from money that has already been taxed, and a crystallised amount for service before 1 July 1983. Employer contributions, salary sacrifice and every dollar of earnings are all taxable component.
What happens if nothing changes
The default arrangement, itemised. This is the bill the fund withholds before anybody receives anything, in 20 years, on the 1 July 2026 caps and rates.
| Part of the benefit | Amount | Rate | Tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tax free component | $73,600 | Nil | $0 |
| Taxable component going to a death benefits dependant | $0 | Nil | $0 |
| Taxed element going to everybody else | $2,876,965 | 15% | $431,545 |
| Untaxed element going to everybody else | $0 | 30% | $0 |
| Medicare levy on both elements | $2,876,965 | 2% | $57,539 |
| Total | $2,950,565 | — | $489,084 |
Nobody is doing anything wrong here. The fund is required to withhold it, the recipient cannot decline it, and no executor can change the components after the event. The only person who could ever have altered this figure was Margaret, while she was alive and had a condition of release.
Every option, ranked
Ranked on one measure and one only: what actually reaches Margaret's beneficiaries in 20 years. The top row leaves the most on these figures. It is not the best option and this report does not have one — it is the arithmetic, and what each row costs to take is in its panel in section 01.
| # | Option | Converted | Death benefits tax | Reaches them | Behind the leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The ladder, and the benefit directed to your estate | $1,074,539 | $270,364 | $2,680,201 | — |
| 2 | The bring-forward repeated every three years, for as long as it is allowed | $1,074,539 | $306,412 | $2,644,152 | −$36,049 |
| 3 | Three years of the cap in one go, using the bring-forward rule | $358,800 | $428,088 | $2,522,477 | −$157,724 |
| 4 | Send the same money through your estate instead | $0 | $431,545 | $2,519,020 | −$161,181 |
| 5 | One year of the non-concessional cap, re-contributed | $119,600 | $468,752 | $2,481,813 | −$198,388 |
| 6 | Leave it exactly as it is | $0 | $489,084 | $2,461,481 | −$218,720 |
| 7 | Take the whole balance out of superannuation and hold it | $846,400 | $0 | $2,047,074 | −$633,127 |
Look at the last row. Taking the whole balance out of superannuation removes the death benefits tax entirely — $0 against $489,084 — and still finishes last, because twenty years of earnings taxed at 32% outside instead of nothing inside costs more than the tax it avoided. That is the sort of result a rule of thumb gets backwards, and it is different for every household.
Why the bill grows even though you do nothing
Margaret's tax free component is $73,600 and it will still be $73,600 in 20 years. Everything the fund earns lands on the other side of the line, so the exposed share climbs from 92% to 98% without anybody deciding anything.
This is why waiting is not free. A dollar of taxable component converted this year is a dollar that never earns another taxable dollar on top of itself. Over 20 years at 6.0% the difference between converting now and converting later is compounding, not a flat amount.
What the bill would be in each year from now
Nobody knows which year this happens in, so the report prices all of them. The upper line is the tax with nothing done; the lower line is the tax under the ladder with the benefit directed to the estate.
The gap between the two lines is what this decision is worth in that year. It starts small, because a strategy that has only run one cycle has only converted one cycle, and it widens for as long as the caps allow another one.
6 more sections, and the charts in them
- 08The re-contribution ladder, cycle by cycle
- 09The cap, and the cliff at $2,100,000
- 10The Medicare levy, and where it is not charged
- 11What it costs to take the money out altogether
- 12Where the answer changes
- 13The dates this actually turns on
Everything above is real arithmetic on a fictional household. Run yours and this half opens on your own figures — and a report with insurance in the fund gets a fourteenth section working through the untaxed element as well.
And you can ask it questions. Every report comes with an assistant that has read your report and explains any figure in it in plain English. Using it is entirely your choice, it does nothing until you press the button, and it is given the amounts on your report and never your name, your email or your account.
That is somebody else's answer. Yours takes about three minutes and costs nothing.
We could not find that link
The link may have already been used. If you are still getting emails, write to us and we will stop them by hand.
Guides
Super death benefits tax, explained properly
Twenty-three guides on the tax your superannuation attracts on the way to whoever you leave it to. Written for somebody who has never seen the words "taxable component" before, in plain English, on the 1 July 2026 caps and rates, with the section of the Act named every time so you can check any of it. Every figure in them comes from the same file the calculator runs on.
Reading is useful. Knowing what this is about to cost your family is better.
Getting it wrong
What happens to your super when you die in Australia?
Superannuation does not automatically form part of your estate, and your will does not by itself decide where it goes. The trustee of your fund decides, guided by any valid nomination you have lodged, and can only pay a limited group of people. The tax on the payment depends on which of them receives it, and none of it can be changed once you have died.
The first thing to understand
Most people assume that superannuation is dealt with by a will, in the same way as a house or a bank account. It is not. Superannuation is held on trust by the fund, and when a member dies the trustee has to decide what to do with it under the fund's own rules and the superannuation law.
A will only reaches it if the benefit is paid to the estate, and the benefit is only paid to the estate if the trustee decides to do that or a valid nomination requires it. This is why a household can have a carefully drafted will and an outcome that has nothing to do with it.
Who the trustee is allowed to pay
The list is short, and it is set by the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993:
- a spouse, including a de facto partner and a registered relationship;
- a child of any age;
- a person in an interdependency relationship with the deceased;
- a person who was financially dependent on them; or
- the legal personal representative — the executor of the estate.
Anybody not on that list — a sibling, a parent, a friend, a charity — can only receive superannuation through the estate, which means a nomination in favour of the legal personal representative and a will that provides for them.
The three ways the decision gets made
A valid binding nomination. The trustee must follow it. This is the only arrangement in which the member decides.
A non-binding nomination. The trustee takes it into account and may depart from it. Most funds do follow them in uncontroversial cases, and "most" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
No nomination, or a lapsed one. The trustee decides for itself, on the evidence it has. It will usually write to the people it knows about and invite claims, and where the family disagrees the process can take many months. A lapsed nomination is the same as no nomination, which is why the expiry date matters.
Then the tax
Once the recipient is settled, the tax follows automatically. There is no discretion in it and nothing to elect.
If the recipient is a death benefits dependant for tax purposes — a spouse or former spouse, a child under 18, an interdependent, or a financial dependant — the lump sum is not taxed at all. If they are not, the tax free component still passes untouched and the taxable component is taxed at 17%, or 32% on any untaxed element.
Where the benefit is paid to the estate, the trustee of the estate is assessed at the rate that would have applied to the beneficiary who ultimately benefits, without the Medicare levy. All four rates in one table.
How long it takes
The regulations say the benefit must be cashed "as soon as practicable" after the member dies. There is no number in the rule, and in practice funds take somewhere between three months and a year depending on how straightforward the claim is.
What makes it slow is almost always evidence: proving a relationship, locating a beneficiary, resolving competing claims, or waiting for probate where the benefit goes to the estate. What the fund actually has to do, and what a family can do to help.
None of that waiting time is useful. The components were fixed on the day of the death, so a longer wait changes when the money arrives and never how much of it there is.
What the insurance does
If there is life cover inside the fund, the insurer pays the sum insured into the fund and it becomes part of the death benefit. It is taxable component, and where the fund deducts the premiums a fraction of the whole lump sum is pushed up to 32%. The formula that does that is the reason a modest balance with a large sum insured can produce a startling tax bill.
What a family can and cannot do afterwards
Cannot: change the components, roll the benefit over, re-contribute it, redirect it to a different recipient in order to change the tax, or leave it in the fund to deal with later.
Can: check whether a recipient actually qualifies as a dependant for tax — the interdependency limb catches more people than families expect; check the untaxed element calculation on the payment summary; and, where the trustee's decision is disputed, complain to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, which is free and binding and has time limits.
The sequence, in order
- The fund is notified of the death and asks for a death certificate and identification.
- The fund checks what nomination it holds and whether it is valid and current.
- Where there is no valid binding nomination, the trustee identifies potential beneficiaries and invites claims.
- Any insurance claim is lodged with the insurer, which is frequently the longest step.
- The trustee makes its decision and, where there is discretion involved, notifies the people affected and allows time for objections.
- The benefit is cashed: the tax is withheld where it is paid to a person, or assessed to the estate where it goes there.
- Where it went to the estate, the executor waits for probate and then distributes under the will.
Why this page is really about the year before
Everything above happens after the only three decisions that actually mattered: what the components were, who the nomination named, and whether there was insurance inside the fund. All three are settled while the member is alive, all three take an afternoon, and none of them can be revisited afterwards.
What would your fund actually pay out?
The calculator applies the rules above to your own balance and your own beneficiaries, shows the tax on the way out, and prices every lawful way of reducing it while there is still time.
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About
Why this exists
Almost every Australian over fifty-five has a large amount of money in superannuation and no idea what happens to it when they die. There is no letter, no notice and no line on any statement warning that a balance left to an adult child is taxed at up to 17% on the taxable component — up to 32% where there is insurance in the fund. The fund administers, the accountant sees the tax return rather than the nomination form, and the whole thing becomes visible for the first time on the one day nothing can be done about it. Families find out from a payment summary.
None of it is secret. The rates are in section 302-145 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, who counts as a death benefits dependant is section 302-195, the untaxed element is section 307-290, the rule that stops you withdrawing only the taxable part is section 307-125, and the contribution caps that decide how fast any of it can be fixed are section 292-85 and the Australian Taxation Office's published rates and thresholds. It is public, it is checkable, and hardly anybody ever sees their own figures — because it is spread across four instruments, written for administrators, and reindexed every July on a cycle nobody outside the industry follows.
Super Death Benefits Tax Calculator does one thing: it applies those published rules to your figures and shows you, in full, what they produce. Every lawful arrangement priced, every one ranked on a single stated measure — what actually reaches the people you are leaving it to — and every working visible so you can check it, argue with it, or take it to somebody who can. The figures come from one file, that file names its source for every number in it, and the calculator is re-run rather than rewritten when a cap moves.
We do not tell you what to do. We are not licensed to, we never call one option the best, and the components of your own superannuation interest are worked out by your fund rather than by us — its figures govern. What is missing for most people is the arithmetic rather than the opinion, and the arithmetic is what this is. Here is what the advice costs if you decide you want that as well, and for anything involving a will or a nomination it is a solicitor rather than an adviser.
Privacy Policy
Short version: we hold as little as we can, we never ask for the identifiers that matter most, and the calculation runs on your own device. The long version is below, because you are entitled to it.
1. About this policy
This policy explains how XTO Pty. Ltd. (we, us, our) collects, holds, uses and discloses personal information, and how you can access, correct or complain about it. We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).
It applies to calculatedchoices.com.au and to every email we send you. It does not apply to any third party site we link to.
2. What we never collect
We do not ask for, and you should never send us, your Medicare number, tax file number, tax file numbers, member numbers, bank account numbers, or any government identifier, bank account details or card number. The calculator does not need them. If you send one to us anyway we will delete it rather than store it.
We do not collect sensitive information as defined in the Privacy Act — health information, racial or ethnic origin, political or religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or criminal record. Where the calculator asks about care needs it asks about funding categories, never about a medical condition.
3. What we collect, and why
Information you give us
- Account details — first and last name, email address, and optionally phone, suburb, state, postcode and your relationship to the person entering care. Used to create and secure your account and to deliver what you bought.
- Saved reports — the figures you entered and the results produced, stored against your account only if you choose to save one. Used so you can return to and compare them.
- Purchases — the order, amount, currency, access period and the PayPal transaction reference. Used to grant access, issue receipts and meet our tax and record keeping obligations.
- Correspondence — what you write to us and our reply. Used to answer you and to resolve disputes.
- Email estimates and reviews — the email address you give us to receive a free estimate, and any review you submit for publication.
Information collected automatically
- Technical data — IP address, browser user agent, device type, screen and viewport size, and the referring page.
- Activity data — the pages you open, the order you open them in, time spent on each, how far you scroll, which calculator steps you complete, and which buttons you press. Used to understand where the site is confusing and to improve it.
- Advertising identifiers — where you arrive from an advertisement, the click identifier appended to the link (for example Google's gclid) and any campaign parameters, so we can measure which advertising works.
4. Where the calculation happens
In your browser, on your device. The figures you type into the calculator are processed locally to produce your result. They are transmitted to us only if you choose to save a scenario to your account. If you never save one, we never receive them.
Two exceptions, and both are things you have to choose to do:
- If you ask us to email your free estimate, the headline figure that estimate produced is stored with your email address so the estimate we send you is the one you saw.
- If you use the optional report assistant, the figures in the report you have open are sent to us and on to the service that answers it. That is the only part of this site that sends anything to a third party, and section 5 sets out exactly what does and does not travel.
5. The report assistant
A paid report comes with an optional assistant you can ask questions about your own figures. It is the one part of this site that sends anything to a third party, so it is set out here in full.
It is entirely your choice, and it does nothing until you use it. Nothing is sent anywhere unless you open the assistant and ask a question. If you never open it, this section does not apply to you at all, and the rest of the report works exactly the same.
What is sent when you do ask
- A plain-text summary of the figures in the report you have open — the amounts, categories and comparisons the report already shows you on screen.
- The question you typed, and the questions and answers already in that conversation, so a follow-up makes sense.
What is not sent
- Your name. The name field on the calculator is optional and is used only on your own report cover. It is not part of what the assistant is given.
- Your email address, your account, your phone number or your street address. The assistant is not told who you are, and is given no way to find out.
- Your Medicare number, tax file number, tax file numbers, member numbers, bank account numbers, or any government identifier, bank account or card details — we never hold these in the first place. See section 2.
What travels is a set of amounts and categories. On its own it does not identify anybody, and we do not send anything alongside it that would.
Who processes it
The request is answered by Google's Gemini API, which processes it outside Australia — see sections 10 and 11. We do not train any model on your figures and we have no arrangement permitting anyone to do so; what Google does with data sent to its API is governed by its own terms, which we do not control.
How long it is kept
- The summary of your figures is held in our server's memory for one hour so a conversation does not have to re-send it with every question, and is then discarded. It is never written to our database.
- The conversation itself is stored in your own browser tab and is gone when you close that tab. We do not keep a copy.
- We record that a question was asked, and how long it was, so we know whether the feature is used. We do not record what it said.
Because the assistant is optional, you can have the entire paid report without any of the above ever happening. Nothing in the report is withheld from somebody who never opens it.
6. Cookies and browser storage
We use the following, and nothing else:
- An authentication cookie — set only when you sign in, so you stay signed in. Strictly necessary.
- A guest identifier — so a scenario saved before you register can be attached to your account when you do.
- A session key (browser session storage) — identifies one visit for the activity data described above. It is a random value and is discarded when you close the tab.
- A visitor key (browser local storage) — a random value kept for up to twelve months so we can tell a returning visitor from a new one. It contains no personal information and is not shared with anyone.
- Preferences — your light or dark theme choice.
You can clear or block these through your browser at any time. Clearing them will sign you out and reset your preferences; the site will otherwise work normally.
7. Analytics and advertising
We use Google Analytics and Google Ads to measure how people find and use the site and whether our advertising is worth running. Where these are enabled, Google receives your IP address, device and browser information, the pages you viewed, and — when you complete a purchase — the order reference and the amount paid. Google may set its own cookies and may combine this with data it holds from other sources. Google's handling of that data is governed by its own privacy policy, not ours.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not disclose it to data brokers, advertising networks other than as described above, your superannuation fund, your beneficiaries or the Australian Taxation Office, or anyone who might try to sell you something.
You can opt out of Google Analytics using Google's browser add-on, and you can adjust personalised advertising in your Google account settings.
8. Payments
Payments are processed by PayPal. Your card or account details are entered on PayPal's systems and are never transmitted to, seen by, or stored on our servers. We receive only the transaction reference, the amount, the status and the email address associated with the payment.
9. Who we disclose information to
- Service providers who host the site, send our email and process payments, and only so they can perform that function.
- Google, as described in sections 5 and 7.
- Professional advisers — our accountants and lawyers, under obligations of confidence.
- A purchaser of our business, if it is ever sold, on terms that require them to honour this policy.
- Law enforcement, courts or regulators, where we are required or authorised by law.
10. Overseas disclosure
Some of these providers store or process data outside Australia, principally in the United States (Google, PayPal) and, depending on our email provider, in other countries. By using the site you acknowledge that we take reasonable steps to ensure overseas recipients handle your information consistently with the APPs, but that we cannot control and are not accountable for how an overseas recipient handles it once disclosed, and that you may not be able to seek redress in that jurisdiction.
11. Security
The site runs entirely over HTTPS. Passwords are stored as salted PBKDF2 hashes, not as text anyone here can read. Access to the database is restricted to those who need it. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee the security of information transmitted over the internet, but we take reasonable steps to protect it from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
If a data breach occurs that is likely to result in serious harm, we will notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required by the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.
12. How long we keep it
- Account and saved reports — until you delete them or ask us to.
- Order and payment records — seven years, as required by Australian tax law. We cannot delete these earlier, even on request.
- Activity data — up to twenty‑six months, then deleted or aggregated so it no longer identifies anyone.
- Email leads — until you unsubscribe, then only the record needed to honour that unsubscribe.
13. Direct marketing
If you give us your email address for a free estimate we may follow up about the full report. Every commercial email we send identifies us and carries a functional unsubscribe link, as required by the Spam Act 2003 (Cth). We action unsubscribes immediately. You will still receive transactional email — receipts, access details and password resets — because those are not marketing.
14. Accessing, correcting and deleting your information
Write to support@calculatedchoices.com.au. We will:
- give you access to the personal information we hold about you, or explain why we cannot;
- correct anything inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading;
- delete your account and every scenario attached to it, subject to the retention periods in section 12.
We will respond within 30 days and will not charge you for making a request. We may need to verify your identity first.
15. Complaints
If you think we have breached the APPs, write to support@calculatedchoices.com.au with "Privacy complaint" in the subject line. We will acknowledge within 5 business days and respond substantively within 30 days.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner: oaic.gov.au, 1300 363 992, or GPO Box 5288, Sydney NSW 2001.
16. Children
The site is intended for anyone over 55 with superannuation they expect to leave to adult children, and the families who have to deal with it afterwards. It is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18.
17. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy. The effective date at the top changes when we do. Where a change is material we will tell you by email or by notice on the site before it takes effect. Continuing to use the site after that means you accept the updated policy.
18. Contact
Privacy Officer
XTO Pty. Ltd. (ACN [ACN NOT SET])
support@calculatedchoices.com.au
Terms of Service
Plain English, because the whole point is that you understand it. Section 6 is the one that matters most — please read it before you rely on anything here.
1. Agreement
By using calculatedchoices.com.au (the site) or buying a pass you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, do not use the site. In these terms we, us and our mean XTO Pty. Ltd.; you means the person using the site or, where you use it on behalf of another person or an entity, both you and that person or entity.
2. Eligibility
You must be at least 18 and legally able to enter a contract. The site is intended for use in Australia and applies Australian law and the superannuation death benefit rules in Division 302 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 only. If you use it from outside Australia you do so on your own initiative and are responsible for local compliance.
3. What this service is
Super Death Benefits Tax Calculator is an information and calculation service. It applies the superannuation death benefit rules in Division 302 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to figures you supply and reports what those rules produce, showing its workings and naming the fee schedule used.
4. What it is not
It is not financial product advice, personal advice, legal advice, tax advice, accounting advice or personal financial product advice, and it is not a recommendation to acquire, dispose of or deal in any financial product.
- We do not hold an Australian Financial Services Licence and are not authorised representatives of any licensee.
- We do not know your full circumstances, objectives, financial situation or needs, and nothing produced by the site takes them into account.
- Where the report ranks options it does so on a single arithmetic measure that deliberately ignores everything a number cannot capture — health, family circumstances, tax position, estate planning, the split between the tax free and taxable components of your superannuation, and who the benefit is paid to, and what actually matters to you.
- We receive no commission and have no relationship with any your superannuation fund trustee, the executor of your estate, and the Australian Taxation Office.
You should obtain independent, licensed advice before acting. Any decision you make is yours.
5. Accuracy and estimates
We take considerable care to keep the rates current and the formulas right, and every report prints the schedule it was built on. Even so:
- All output is an estimate based on the figures you entered. If those figures are wrong, incomplete or out of date, the output will be too.
- your superannuation fund trustee, who works out the components of your interest and is the only party who can confirm what they actually are Those prevail over anything the site produces.
- Rates, thresholds and caps change by legislation and indexation, and legislation can change without notice or retrospectively.
- Projections rely on assumptions about the future — investment returns, indexation, home values, length of stay — which are inherently uncertain and will not be accurate.
Always confirm before you act.
6. Your responsibility for decisions
You acknowledge and agree that you are solely responsible for evaluating the output, for verifying it against official sources, for obtaining independent professional advice, and for every decision you make or do not make. We are not your adviser and no fiduciary or advisory relationship arises from your use of the site.
7. Accounts
You are responsible for keeping your password confidential and for everything done under your account. Tell us immediately at support@calculatedchoices.com.au if you suspect unauthorised use. We may suspend or close an account we reasonably believe is being used in breach of these terms.
8. Passes, price and payment
- A pass grants access to the full report from the moment payment is confirmed, and it does not expire. It does not renew and nothing is charged automatically. There is no subscription and no card is kept on file.
- Prices are in Australian dollars and include GST where applicable. We may change prices at any time; the price shown when you buy is the price you pay.
- Payment is processed by PayPal under its own terms. We do not receive your card details.
- A pass is for personal or single household use. It is not transferable and may not be shared, resold or used to provide a service to others.
9. Reports you export
A report you export as a PDF or otherwise save remains yours to keep and to show to family, an adviser or superannuation fund. That licence is personal and non‑commercial. It does not permit republication, resale, or use as part of a product or service you provide to others.
10. Refunds
Our promise: if the calculator cannot properly model your circumstances, or something has gone wrong, write to us within 14 days of purchase and we will refund the pass. No form and no argument. We would rather refund you than have you rely on a number that does not fit.
This is a voluntary commercial guarantee offered in addition to, and it does not limit, your rights under the Australian Consumer Law. Refunds are made to the original payment method within five business days of us accepting the request.
11. Acceptable use
You must not:
- scrape, crawl, harvest, mirror or systematically extract the site or its content;
- attempt to access the paid report engine, any account, or any data without authorisation;
- reverse engineer, decompile or attempt to derive the source of any part of the service;
- interfere with the site's operation or security, or impose an unreasonable load on it;
- resell, sublicense or commercially exploit the service or its output;
- use the site to provide financial, legal or placement advice to third parties; or
- use it unlawfully, or to infringe anyone's rights.
12. Intellectual property
All content, code, calculation methodology, report design, text and branding on the site is owned by us or licensed to us and is protected by copyright and other laws. Legislated rates and government data are not owned by anyone; our expression, arrangement and implementation of them is. Nothing in these terms transfers ownership to you.
13. Availability
We aim to keep the site available but do not guarantee it will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or error free. We may modify, suspend or discontinue any part of it, and may perform maintenance, at any time. If we permanently discontinue the service while your pass is running, we will refund the unused portion.
14. Third parties
The site relies on third party services including PayPal, Google and our hosting and email providers, and links to third party sites and government resources. We are not responsible for those services or sites, their availability, their content or their terms.
15. Australian Consumer Law
Our goods and services come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law. For major failures with the service, you are entitled to cancel your service contract with us and to a refund for the unused portion, or to compensation for its reduced value. You are also entitled to be compensated for any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage. If the failure does not amount to a major failure, you are entitled to have problems with the service rectified in a reasonable time and, if this is not done, to cancel your contract and obtain a refund for the unused portion of the contract.
Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies any consumer guarantee, right or remedy conferred by the Australian Consumer Law or any other law which cannot lawfully be excluded, restricted or modified. If any part of these terms would do so, that part does not apply.
16. Limitation of liability
Subject always to section 15, and to the maximum extent permitted by law:
- the site and its output are provided "as is" and "as available", and we exclude all warranties, conditions, guarantees and representations not expressly set out in these terms, whether express, implied, statutory or otherwise, including as to accuracy, fitness for a particular purpose, merchantability and non‑infringement;
- we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive or consequential loss, or for any loss of profit, revenue, savings, opportunity, goodwill, data, anticipated benefit, or for any loss arising from a decision made or not made in reliance on the site, however arising and whether in contract, tort (including negligence), statute or otherwise, even if we were advised of the possibility;
- our total aggregate liability to you for all claims connected with the site or these terms is limited, at our election, to resupplying the service or to refunding the amount you actually paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose; and
- where liability cannot be excluded but can be limited, it is limited as set out above.
You agree that this allocation of risk is reasonable given the price of the service and that the service is information rather than advice.
Our liability is reduced to the extent your loss is caused or contributed to by you, including by entering incorrect figures, by failing to verify output against official sources, or by failing to obtain independent advice.
17. Indemnity
To the maximum extent permitted by law, you indemnify us against any claim, loss, liability, cost or expense (including reasonable legal costs) arising from your breach of these terms, your misuse of the site, or your provision of the site's output to a third party who relies on it. This does not apply to the extent the claim arises from our own breach, negligence or wilful misconduct.
18. Termination
You may stop using the site at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access immediately if you breach these terms. Sections 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 15, 16, 17, 19 and 20 survive termination.
19. Privacy
Our Privacy Policy forms part of these terms and explains how we handle personal information.
20. Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia. You and we submit to the non‑exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New South Wales and the courts entitled to hear appeals from them.
21. General
- Changes. We may amend these terms. The effective date changes when we do, and material changes will be notified by email or on the site before they take effect. The terms in force when you bought a pass govern that purchase.
- Severability. If a provision is unenforceable it is read down to the minimum extent necessary, or severed, without affecting the rest.
- Waiver. A failure to enforce a right is not a waiver of it.
- Assignment. You may not assign these terms without our consent. We may assign them on a sale of the business.
- Entire agreement. These terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between us about the site.
22. Contact
XTO Pty. Ltd. (ACN [ACN NOT SET])
support@calculatedchoices.com.au