TTR sweet-spot calculator
From age 60 you can salary-sacrifice into super and top your take-home back up from a transition-to-retirement (TTR) pension — shifting income from your marginal rate to 15% tax. Move the sliders to find the sacrifice that saves the most for the same take-home.
TTR is available from your preservation age (60).
You'd run the strategy for about 5 years.
Your employer adds 12% super (~$14,400/yr) on top.
A TTR pension can pay 4–10% of this a year — a bigger balance lets you replace more take-home.
How the swap works
Salary-sacrifice into super (taxed at 15%, not your ~32% marginal rate), then draw the same amount you gave up from a TTR pension — tax-free from 60. Your take-home is unchanged; the gap between your marginal rate and 15% becomes extra super.
It's capped by the $32,500 concessional cap (your $14,400 SG + $18,100 sacrifice).
Take-home is fully replaced by the tax-free TTR pension at this level.
General information only, a 2026-vintage estimate in today's dollars — not personal financial advice. Since 2017 a TTR pension's earnings are taxed at 15% (like accumulation), so the benefit is the contributions-tax arbitrage shown here, not an earnings-tax break. Bring it into your full plan with the Transition-to-Retirement lever.
How the sweet spot works
The benefit is a tax arbitrage: each dollar you salary-sacrifice is taxed at 15% going into super instead of your marginal rate plus the 2% Medicare levy. You replace the take-home you gave up by drawing from a TTR pension, which is tax-free from 60 — so your pay packet is unchanged and the difference between your marginal rate and 15% lands in your super.
Two limits set the sweet spot. Your total concessional contributions (employer SG plus salary sacrifice) can't exceed the concessional cap, and a TTR pension can pay at most 10% of its balance a year — so a smaller super balance limits how much take-home you can replace. The sweet spot is the largest sacrifice that fits both.
Since 1 July 2017 a TTR pension's earnings are taxed at 15% (the same as accumulation), so the old earnings-tax break is gone — the contributions arbitrage above is where the value now sits. High earners over $250,000 also pay Division 293, an extra 15% that halves the arbitrage.
See it in your whole retirement plan
The free planner runs a TTR strategy inside your full projection — the extra super, the tax saved, and how it plays out year by year to retirement.
Open the planner