Allow couples tax-free super splitting: Hume

A bill that would allow couples to split their collective superannuation balances evenly between them to improve the gender super gap was tabled in Parliament.

- Jamie Williamson

The Superannuation Legislation Amendment (Tackling the Gender Super Gap) Bill 2025 was tabled by Senator Jane Humeº¹, who said it "goes to the heart of fairness, equity and recognition of the sacrifices made within Australian families."

Under the bill, spouses would be able to split their retirement savings via rollover - the spouse with the higher balance would roll an amount into the account of the spouse with the lower balance. The rollover could occur as a one-off lump sum or be done annually.

An amount transferred would not be treated as a contribution, but as a rollover, avoiding any additional taxes. It would also retain the original fund's proportion of concessional and non-concessional components.

Those in defined benefit schemes as well as accounts already in pension or drawdown phase would be excluded from using the mechanism; both spouses must be in accumulation phase.

It would also only be available to people who have just one super account, to avoid potential unintended consequences for those with multiple.