Career Break Projection Calculator
There are all sorts of reasons for taking a break from your job. Whether you’re in your 30s, 40s or 50s, raising a family, caring for a loved one or just taking unpaid leave for your own wellbeing, a career gap – and loss of regular income – can affect your super.
Our career break calculator can give you a good estimate of what that cost might be.
Assumptions
The retirement balance outcome uses an actuary projection and the following assumptions, some of which you can change:
Investment returns
Inflation
Fees
Fixed assumptions
- Full time is considered to be five days or more per week.
- The missing super contributions figure is calculated according to the time you will be away from work plus any period thereafter where you are working less days than before you took your career break.
- This calculator works for accumulation funds only. It will not work for defined benefit funds.
- This calculator does not allow self-employed people to project their retirement balance.
- Outcome is based on your contributions being made annually, at the mid-year point, on your fees being deducted annually, insurance premiums being charged annually and your investment returns being credited to your account annually.
- We assume that your super is invested in a balanced option. Investment returns can be adjusted above.
- Contribution tax of 15% is applied to the missing super contributions figure.
- Superannuation Guarantee Contribution is currently 10% of ordinary time earnings and is presently legislated to incrementally increase to 12% by 2025.
- Retirement age is set at 67.
- Voluntary additional contributions are not accounted for.
- No tax is payable on fees.
- We assume that insurance premiums are tax deductible within super.
- We assume that you have provided your Tax File Number to your superannuation fund.
- All amounts are in today’s dollars and are adjusted for an assumed annual inflation rate of 2%. In addition, a further annual increase of 1% is included to take into account the cost of meeting increases in community living standards. This means a total assumed inflation rate of 3% is allowed for. You can adjust that rate.
- We assume that you will satisfy the Work test at older ages and so are able to contribute.
Disclaimer
Your retirement outcome will be affected by many things including the amount of contributions you make, fees, investment returns and regulatory changes. Some factors that may affect your retirement outcomes may not have been taken into account.
This tool is not intended to be relied upon for the purposes of making a financial decision. Consider a fund's PDS and your objectives, financial situation and needs, which are not accounted for in this information before making an investment decision. You are responsible for your own investment decisions and should obtain specific, individual advice from a financial services licensee before making any financial decisions.