I want to check if my understanding here is correct:
Here's my situation:
I earn $135K + super, my wife earns basically nothing, she gets a scholarship which is not taxable income.
I am a NZ Citizen on a SC444 visa, and she's from South Asia on a student visa doing her PhD.
We're looking at buying a house in about a year or so.
Now, first things is that under the Australian super scheme, you can make contributions of up to $25K/year which are taxed at a lower rate than your normal income tax. Additionally, if in previous years (for up to five years) you haven't reached that cap, you can 'carry over' the unused amount.
This means that I can quite safely salary sacrifice around $30K over the next year and be receiving this lower tax rate.
Now the first question is - there is the First Home Saver Scheme that lets me withdraw upto $30K for a first home.
Are there any hidden costs here that I'm not considering? ie. taxes paid when using super this way?
Because it otherwise seems like a nobrainer to me, that instead of saving my money the normal way, it's much better for me to just funnel my money into Super and then withdraw it via FHSS - of course, I can only withdraw $30k.
The second thing is, it seems that you can contribute to your partner's super. Now, it seems like you have to contribute after tax earnings, and you can only contribute $3000 a year to get a benefit ($540 tax credit).
But can your partners super also be withdrawn via FHSS to potentially count for $60K towards a house deposit?