A Notice of Intent to Claim a Tax Deduction for Personal Super Contributions is the form you lodge with your super fund to convert an after-tax personal contribution into a concessional (before-tax) one so you can deduct it on your return. Without a valid notice, your fund treats the money as a non-concessional contribution and no deduction is available. The form is the ATO’s NAT 71121, and your fund must acknowledge it in writing before you lodge your tax return.1Australian Taxation Office. Notice of Intent to Claim or Vary a Deduction for Personal Super Contributions
Once the notice is processed, the contribution is taxed inside the fund at the flat concessional rate of 15% rather than sitting in your account as after-tax money.2Australian Taxation Office. Understanding Concessional and Non-Concessional Contributions The amount you nominate then reduces your taxable income on your return. For the 2025–26 financial year, total concessional contributions (employer, salary sacrifice, and anything you claim through this notice) cannot exceed $30,000 unless you have unused cap space to carry forward.3Australian Taxation Office. Contributions Caps
Who Can Lodge One
The contribution has to have gone to a complying super fund or retirement savings account, and the money must still be in your account when the fund receives your notice.4Australian Taxation Office. Personal Super Contributions If you have already withdrawn it, rolled it over to another fund, used it to start a pension or income stream, or lodged a contribution-splitting application with your spouse, the notice is invalid.
Employment status does not matter. Both employees and self-employed people can claim. The old 10% rule, which restricted the deduction to people whose employment income was less than 10% of their total, was abolished from 1 July 2017.
Age Rules
Between 67 and 74, you can still contribute, but to claim a deduction you need to meet the work test or a work test exemption. The work test requires 40 hours of gainful employment within a consecutive 30-day period during the financial year the contribution was made.5Australian Taxation Office. Restrictions on Voluntary Contributions
From age 75, funds can only accept voluntary contributions during the 28 days after the end of the month you turn 75. Once that window closes, personal deductible contributions are no longer possible.
Filling Out the NAT 71121
You can download the NAT 71121 from the ATO website, or use your fund’s equivalent form inside its member portal, which usually pre-fills your account details. Either version asks for the same information: your Tax File Number, your fund’s name, ABN, and Unique Superannuation Identifier. Your fund cannot process the notice without your TFN on file, and without a TFN it is not permitted to accept the contributions the notice covers.6Australian Taxation Office. Tax File Numbers and Super Contributions Fund details are on your annual statement and in your online account.
The form also asks you to:
- Indicate whether this is a new notice or a variation of a previous one.
- Specify the financial year the contributions relate to.
- State the exact dollar amount you intend to claim as a deduction.
The claimed amount cannot exceed the total personal contributions you made during that year. Check the year and the dollar figure against your bank records before submitting. A mismatch is the most common reason a notice gets rejected.
Deadlines That Close the Window
Your fund must receive a valid notice before the earlier of two events: the day you lodge your income tax return for the year of the contribution, or the end of the following financial year.7Australian Taxation Office. Notice of Intent to Claim a Deduction For a contribution made during 2025–26, that outer deadline is 30 June 2027, and only if you have not already lodged the 2025–26 return.
Four other events end the window permanently for those contributions, no matter how much time is left on the calendar:
- You withdraw the money.
- You roll the balance over to another fund.
- You start a pension or other income stream drawing on those contributions.
- You lodge a contribution-splitting application with your fund.
There is no extension and no appeal. If you are planning to consolidate funds or move into a retirement income stream, lodge the notice and receive the acknowledgment first.
Getting the Acknowledgment Before You Lodge
Most funds accept notices through their online member portal, which is the fastest option and produces an automatic record. Email of a scanned copy and postal delivery also work, but they take longer.
Funds are required to acknowledge a valid notice immediately, and in practice this takes a few business days. The only statutory exception is where your account balance is less than the tax the fund would need to withhold on acknowledging the notice. The acknowledgment must include the date the notice was received, any variations, your account and fund details, the total personal contributions covered, the amount you intend to claim, and the financial year the contributions relate to.7Australian Taxation Office. Notice of Intent to Claim a Deduction
Do not lodge your tax return until the written acknowledgment is in your hands. The ATO can disallow the deduction at assessment if the acknowledgment is not in place. Keep a copy with your tax records.
Varying a Notice You Already Sent
You can lodge a variation, but only to reduce the amount you originally claimed, including reducing it to zero. You cannot revoke a notice outright, and you cannot use a variation to increase the amount. If you want to claim more, submit a second notice covering the extra contribution, subject to the same deadlines.
The typical reason to vary downward is realising your employer contributions were higher than expected and your original claim would push you over the concessional cap. Get written acknowledgment of the variation before you lodge your return, the same as for the original notice.
Staying Under the $30,000 Cap
Before you decide how much to claim, add up everything already flowing into super as concessional: employer Super Guarantee contributions from your payment summaries, any salary sacrifice, and any amount you are about to claim on the notice. All of it counts toward the same $30,000 cap.8Australian Taxation Office. Concessional Contributions Cap Most people overestimate their remaining room because they forget to subtract employer contributions first.
If you go over, the excess is added to your assessable income and taxed at your marginal rate, with a 15% offset for the contributions tax the fund already paid. The excess also counts toward your non-concessional cap, which can trigger further consequences if that one is breached too. The ATO will issue a determination and offer you the option to release up to 85% of the excess from super to pay the resulting tax.
Carry-Forward Cap Space
If your total super balance was under $500,000 at 30 June of the previous financial year, you can use unused concessional cap from up to five earlier years, starting from 2018–19, to make a larger deductible contribution now. The oldest unused amounts are used first, and any unused cap older than five years expires. The ATO applies carry-forward amounts automatically once your contributions for the year exceed the standard $30,000.
Division 293 for High Earners
If your combined income and concessional contributions exceed $250,000, an additional 15% Division 293 tax applies to some or all of the concessional contributions, lifting the effective contributions tax on the affected portion from 15% to 30%.9Australian Taxation Office. Division 293 Tax The deduction still applies; the ATO assesses Division 293 separately after your return is lodged and sends a notice for the amount owing.