Nucleus Wealth offers all investment portfolios through personal superannuation.

Once aboard, Nucleus Wealth sends you a prefilled form to give to your employer, where we can accept additional contributions much like any other fund.

Onboarding to create the client’s Nucleus Wealth superannuation account is easy and paperless, and the platform takes care of the rollover from your previous superannuation fund electronically.

We offer two different versions:

DASH

This is our low-cost superannuation option.

• This is best for lower balance (below $150,000) superannuation accounts
• Cost-effective solution for higher balances who prefer ETFs rather than direct international.
• Administration fees: 0.385% for the first $500,000. 0.035% thereafter.
• Trading fees: 0.11% 

Praemium Super SMA

• Best for mid-balance ($150,000-$300,000) superannuation accounts who are looking for more investment options
• Best for higher balance ($300,000+) superannuation accounts.

The fee structure is more complicated. See below for an indicative table showing the tiers, or log-in to our portal so we can generate a quote for you based on your balance and show the full costs.

Note that these instructions are for any accounts except personal superannuation. 

1. Log in to our onboarding portal
2. Click on "Your Account(s)"
3. Find the account that you wish to withdraw from. Under this account, there is a "manage withdrawal"  button
4. Click "Create New Withdrawal"
5. You will have the option to do either a partial or full withdrawal

Superannuation money can only be withdrawn under a number of specific circumstances. Please contact us if you have a specific need

If you are changing to a new fund

You may request a rollover from your new fund. You are not required to contact us.

If you are in pension phase

Please contact us to set up a regular withdrawal process.

If you are claiming hardship or special circumstances

We will need you to fill in a form from the platform you are invested on. Please log in to https://portal.nucleuswealth.com and then click on the "forms" link.

Note that these instructions are for any accounts except personal superannuation. 

1. Log in to https://portal.nucleuswealth.com
2. Click on "Your Account(s)"
3. Find the account that you wish to withdraw from. Under this account, there is a "manage withdrawal"  button
4. This page has a list of withdrawals in progress or that are completed. Click on "See details" for the withdrawal that you want.
5. There are 8 stages that we show:
   • Date Requested: Date you submitted the request
   • Date Trading Instruction Given: Date the trading platform confirmed your instructions
   • Date First Traded: Date of first stock trades to sell down your holdings into cash. Note that for larger withdrawals, trades may occur in multiple international markets, and public holidays may play a factor in delaying the settlement of some transactions
   • Date Trading Complete: Date that all trades are completed.
   • Date First Settled: Date that your trading account received the first cash from your trades. If you are closing your account, there may be dividends which companies are yet to pay which will delay the final reconciliation.
   • Date Settlement Complete: Date that your trading account received the all cash from your trades. If you are closing your account, there may be dividends which companies are yet to pay which will delay the final reconciliation.
   • Date First Transferred: Date that your investment account first transferred the trade settlement funds to your bank account. Typically within 7 days. These funds exclude any dividends or income yet to land in your account.
   • Date Transfer Finalised: Date that your investment account has received all cash from your previous holdings. If you are closing your account, there may be dividends which companies are yet to pay, which can delay the final reconciliation for a number of weeks.

Nucleus use a number of different platforms. Depending on the platform and the investment type, closing the account will vary.

1. Superannuation Accounts

1.1. Moving to a different fund:

You will need to request a rollover. You can do this from your new fund, which will then send the request to either Praemium or DASH. 

1.2 Withdrawing all funds into your own account:

There are different reasons you can have to withdraw money from superannuation accounts. You will need to fill in a form and submit this to the platform.

Note that you may want to convert your account to a pension account first in order to save on tax.

See here (under "Praemium Super" then click the forms tab) for Praemium forms.

See here (under "Super Simplifier Forms") for DASH forms.

2. Non-Superannuation Accounts

2.1. Selling all stocks and withdrawing all money

Use the instructions above "How can I withdraw money" and choose "full withdrawal".

By default this will close Praemium accounts.

For Interactive Broker accounts, once you have received the money you can opt to remove Nucleus as an advisor (see 2.2 below) or close the account from the settings menu. 

2.2 Moving the account to another advisor or to control it yourself

For Interactive Brokers:

• Log into your account
• Click on the "head" button then settings
  
• Click on Manage Account Linking and then follow the instructions
  

For Praemium:

 See here for Praemium forms.

2.3 In-specie Transfer of stock

If you want to transfer all of your shares to a different platform, send an email to contact@nucleuswealth.com and we will contact you about the process. 

Most accounts will allow shares to be transferred from another broker so that it doesn't create a capital gains event. In some personal superannuation cases it may not be possible.

Typically international shares and Australian shares will be transferred separately and there will not be any cost at the receiving end.

Below are some screenshots to show how this would typically occur at one of our platforms, Interactive Brokers:

Both larger-balance accounts or aggregated family accounts are eligible for administration fee discounts. The discounts apply on a progressive basis, so different portions of balances attract a different level of fees. 

Nucleus use different platforms, each platform has different levels where family discounts apply or a capped fee. You can apply for family group aggregation through the "Administration" section once you log into your Nucleus account.

DASH
DASH administration fees cap at a combined $500,000 for individual accounts or for a combined family unit of up to 6 members at $3,630 per annum. These 6 accounts can be of any type (super/investments/pension) and belonging to either one person or multiple family members. 

Praemium
Praemium’s administration fees cap at a combined $2,500,000 for individual accounts or a combined family unit of up to 6 members. These 6 accounts can be of any type (super/investments/pension) and belonging to either one person or multiple family members. 

Nucleus try to minimise the fees for trading.

On Interactive Brokers or DASH, there are no fixed fees for trading and so Nucleus will progressively trade any deposits that you make. 

On Praemium there are minimum amounts per share, and so:

• When you initially fund your account at Praemium they will wait until the funds in your account are equal to, or greater than, the initial investment total you specified in our onboarding process. Once your account gets to this amount, Praemium will send all your money off for trading in one go.
• For ongoing investments, Nucleus minimise the trading by limiting the amount that you will trade on each security.  
• If you would like to make additional contributions to your account, and plan to do so in multiple instalments close to each other, give us a call to discuss the best way to do this and make sure we can help you minimise your trading costs. 

Nucleus Wealth offers all investment portfolios through personal superannuation.

Once aboard, Nucleus Wealth sends you a prefilled form to give to your employer, where we can accept additional contributions much like any other fund.

Onboarding to create the client’s Nucleus Wealth superannuation account is easy and paperless, and the platform takes care of the rollover from your previous superannuation fund electronically.

We offer two different versions:

DASH

This is our low-cost superannuation option.

• This is best for lower balance (below $150,000) superannuation accounts
• Cost-effective solution for higher balances who prefer ETFs rather than direct international.
• Administration fees: 0.385% for the first $500,000. 0.035% thereafter.
• Trading fees: 0.11% 

Praemium Super SMA

• Best for mid-balance ($150,000-$300,000) superannuation accounts who are looking for more investment options
• Best for higher balance ($300,000+) superannuation accounts.

The fee structure is more complicated. See below for an indicative table showing the tiers, or log-in to our portal so we can generate a quote for you based on your balance and show the full costs.

There are different ways to make concessional contributions:

1. Salary Sacrifice through your employer

You do this by contacting your employer. They will make pre-tax contributions, and you do not need to notify us.

2. Transferring money from your bank account to your super

When you do this you have the option of making either

1. A non-concessional contribution where there is no immediate tax benefit for you. This is the default, and if we don't hear from you we will assume that your contribution is non-concessional
2. A concessional contribution where there is a tax benefit. In this case, you will deposit money and then claim a tax deduction. You will need to inform Nucleus by emailing us at contact@nucleuswealth.com when you make this type of payment. 

1. Go to my.gov.au and login.
2. Go to the Australian tax office
   

3. Select Super -> Information -> Carry forward concessional contributions

4. Select the year and see your contribution:

Note that the information may not be fully up to date and relies on your superannuation funds reporting.

It does show the calculation, but you should also maintain your own records, particularly if you have a self-managed fund or multiple superannuation accounts.

Note that this is the typical situation for Australian taxpayers. Please speak to your tax adviser about your own situation. If you are a taxpayer of a different country, there will be different rules—particularly for US citizens.

Tax on Income/Dividends

There is no requirement for you to file tax returns in other countries. Many countries will tax dividends (before you receive them) with a withholding tax. This is reported to you each year and you can claim it to avoid double taxation - similar to franking credits.

For superannuation investors, you do not have to do anything as the superannuation platform does your tax for you.

For everyone else, you will receive an annual tax statement that shows you which item to put the values. See example below:

Capital Gains

Capital gains on international shares are treated the same way as capital gains on Australian shares. 

Most accounts will allow shares to be transferred from another broker so that it doesn't create a capital gains event. In some personal superannuation cases it may not be possible.

Typically international shares and Australian shares will be transferred separately and there will not be any cost at the receiving end.

Below are some screenshots to show how this would typically occur at one of our platforms, Interactive Brokers:

Understanding the Strategy

A review of your portfolio's customizations to ensure your investments continue to align with your personal values and macroeconomic views.

How the Mechanism Works

Customized portfolios allow you to manipulate exactly what you are invested in: - Ethical Screens: These act as absolute filters. If you are morally opposed to certain industries, you can apply screens to completely strip out companies involved in fossil fuels, weapons, gambling, or animal cruelty from your portfolio. - Tilts: These act as weight adjustments. If you believe a specific sector (like Technology, Defence, or Healthcare) is going to drastically outperform the broader market, you can apply a "tilt" to systematically over-weight those specific sectors in your portfolio compared to the standard index.

Because your values or market views may shift over time, you should periodically review these settings to ensure your portfolio reflects your current stance.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Investors using customized Managed Accounts or direct share portfolios.

Further Information

• Nucleus Wealth: Ethical Investing

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

The government provides a tax offset of up to $540 to encourage individuals to top up the retirement savings of their low-income earning spouse or de facto partner.

How the Mechanism Works

To claim the maximum $540 tax offset for the 2025/26 financial year, you must make an after-tax (non-concessional) superannuation contribution of at least $3,000 into your spouse’s super account. - The full offset is available if your spouse's income is under $37,000. - The offset gradually phases out if your spouse earns between $37,000 and $40,000. - The contribution must be made before 30 June and your spouse must be under their non-concessional contributions cap limit.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Couples where one partner has taken time out of the workforce (e.g. for child-rearing or studying) or works part-time, leading to a low income. It’s an effective way to boost their super while reducing the higher-earning partner’s tax bill.

Further Information

• ATO: Spouse super contributions

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

The structured transfer of your excess wealth to your adult children or grandchildren to help them enter the housing market or build their own superannuation, rather than holding onto the wealth until you die.

How the Mechanism Works

Many retirees hold far more wealth than they will ever spend, waiting until they pass away to transfer it. By gifting money early, you can see your family enjoy the benefits when they need it most (e.g. paying off a mortgage when they are 35, rather than inheriting a lump sum when they are 65).

Centrelink Age Pension Implications: If you receive a partial or full age pension, the government places strict limits on how much you can gift before it penalizes you. For the 2025/26 financial year, you can only gift: - A maximum of $10,000 in a single financial year, AND - A maximum of $30,000 over any 5-year rolling period.

If you gift more than this, Centrelink will still count the excess amount as your asset for 5 years and apply deemed income to it, reducing your pension.

If you are a self-funded retiree not reliant on the pension, there are zero limits on what you can gift.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Retirees with significant surplus capital who want to assist their children immediately. Age pensioners must exercise extreme caution to avoid breaching the $10k/$30k limits.

Further Information

• Services Australia: Gifting limits

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

The super co-contribution is a government initiative designed to boost the retirement savings of low- and middle-income earners. If you make a personal after-tax contribution to your super, the government will contribute additional money for free.

How the Mechanism Works

For the 2025/26 financial year, if you make a $1,000 after-tax (non-concessional) contribution to your super account, the government will match it with a maximum $500 co-contribution (a guaranteed 50% immediate return on your money).

To get the maximum $500, your total income must be under $45,400 for the 2025/26 financial year. The co-contribution phases out gradually and drops to zero once your income hits $60,400. You must also pass the 10% eligible income test (meaning at least 10% of your income must come from employment or running a business).

Ideal Candidate Profile

Anyone earning under $60,400 who can afford to lock away $1,000 until retirement. This is a particularly lucrative strategy for students working part-time, or parents who have returned to the workforce in a heavily reduced capacity.

Further Information

• ATO: Super co-contribution

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

A recontribution strategy involves withdrawing a lump sum from your superannuation (which usually consists of both a "tax-free" and "taxable" component) and immediately recontributing it back into your super fund as a non-concessional (after-tax) contribution.

How the Mechanism Works (Step-by-Step Example)

When you die, superannuation paid to non-dependents (like adult children) is subject to a "death tax" of 15% plus the 2% Medicare levy (17% total) on the taxable component of your balance. The tax-free component is completely tax-free to everyone.

Example: 1. John is 65, retired, and has $500,000 in super. It is 100% "taxable component". 2. If John dies, his adult children will pay 17% tax on the whole $500,000 ($85,000 in tax). 3. John withdraws $100,000 as a tax-free lump sum (since he is over 60). 4. He immediately recontributes that $100,000 back into his super as a non-concessional contribution. 5. That $100,000 now becomes a 100% "tax-free component". 6. If John dies the next day, the tax bill for his children drops by $17,000 (17% of $100,000).

Ideal Candidate Profile

Individuals over 60 who have met a condition of release (e.g. retired) and want to proactively reduce the future tax burden on their adult children.

Further Information

• ATO: Tax on super benefits

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

A Will is a legally binding document that dictates exactly how your assets (your estate) will be distributed after your death.

How the Mechanism Works

Dying without a Will is called dying "intestate". If this happens, your assets are frozen and distributed according to a generic state government formula. This process is incredibly slow, expensive, and stressful for grieving families. It also means you have absolutely zero say in who gets your money, who becomes the guardian of your minor children, or who administers your estate.

A properly drafted Will avoids all of this. It appoints an executor (the person you trust to handle the paperwork), assigns guardians for your children, and clearly states who gets what. If you have complex family structures (blended families, stepchildren, ex-spouses), a Will is the only way to prevent bitter legal disputes.

Note: Your superannuation does NOT automatically form part of your estate covered by your Will. You must use a Binding Death Benefit Nomination with your super fund to direct that money.

Ideal Candidate Profile

If you have children, own a house, or have significant assets, it is irresponsible not to have a Will.

Further Information

• Moneysmart: Making a will

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

An Enduring Power of Attorney (EPOA) is a legal document where you appoint someone you implicitly trust to make financial or medical decisions on your behalf if you lose the capacity to do so yourself (e.g., due to a severe accident, coma, or dementia).

How the Mechanism Works

If you are incapacitated and don't have an EPOA, your spouse or family cannot legally access your bank accounts to pay the mortgage, sell a jointly owned house to fund your medical care, or run your business. They would have to apply to a government tribunal for permission, which is a slow and exhausting process.

There are generally two types you need to consider: 1. Financial/Legal EPOA: Allows the person to sign contracts, access bank accounts, and sell property on your behalf. "Enduring" means the power continues even if you lose mental capacity. 2. Medical/Guardianship: Allows the person to make critical healthcare decisions (e.g., surgeries, life support, aged care placement) if you cannot communicate.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Anyone with assets, a business, or a family. The reality is that accidents happen, and failing to plan simply locks your family out of the ability to help you when you are most vulnerable.

Further Information

• Moneysmart: Power of attorney

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

You can contribute directly to your spouse’s super fund using your own after-tax money. While slightly different from the low-income offset, this broader strategy simply helps build your spouse's balance.

How the Mechanism Works

By moving your personal after-tax savings into your spouse's super environment, the money grows in a low-tax structure (max 15% tax on earnings). Doing this systematically is highly effective for equalising account balances across the couple, ensuring neither partner breaches the Transfer Balance Cap in the future. The total contributions must not exceed the receiving spouse’s non-concessional contribution cap (currently $120,000 per year for 2025/26, or up to $360,000 under the bring-forward rule).

Ideal Candidate Profile

Couples planning to equalise their superannuation to maximise tax-free retirement incomes. It is also an absolute necessity if you want to qualify for the accompanying Spouse Super Tax Offset (provided they earn under $40,000).

Further Information

• ATO: Spouse super contributions

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

A periodic audit of your existing life insurance coverage to ensure the payout amount accurately matches your family's current debt levels and living expenses.

How the Mechanism Works

Your life insurance needs change drastically over your lifetime. When you buy a $1 million house and have three kids, your insurance need is at its absolute peak. Fast forward twenty years: the mortgage is paid off, the kids have moved out, and your super balance is massive. At this point, your insurance needs have drastically dropped, and continuing to pay massive premiums is wasting money.

How to calculate what you need: 1. Debt Clearance: Enough to instantly pay off the mortgage and all debts. 2. Future Expenses: Estimate future school/university fees for the kids. 3. Income Replacement: A lump sum that, when invested, can generate a reliable passive income for the surviving spouse. 4. Subtract Existing Assets: Subtract your current super balance and liquid assets.

If the gap is $1.5 million, that is the exact amount of cover you need.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Anyone who has experienced a major life event (marriage, divorce, new child, new massive mortgage, or significant pay raise) must review their cover immediately.

Further Information

• Moneysmart: How much life insurance do I need?

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

The process of explicitly prioritizing your financial goals, as the timeframe of your primary goal completely dictates which investment strategies are appropriate.

How the Mechanism Works

You cannot optimize for everything simultaneously. If you are aggressively saving for a house deposit in the next two years, the appropriate strategy is cash or term deposits (perhaps inside the First Home Super Saver Scheme). If you put that deposit money into the stock market, a sudden 20% crash could completely derail your purchase.

Conversely, if your primary focus is retirement in 20 years, holding cash is a disastrous strategy due to inflation. You should be maximizing concessional super contributions and investing in high-growth equities.

By explicitly naming your #1 financial focus, you instantly filter out inappropriate strategies.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Anyone feeling overwhelmed by financial advice. Pick one primary goal, optimize your cash flow for it, and (mostly!) ignore everything else until that goal is achieved.

Further Information

• Moneysmart: Setting financial goals

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

Private health insurance provides cover for hospital and medical expenses. Crucially, holding an appropriate level of private hospital cover can exempt you from the Medicare Levy Surcharge (MLS), a punitive tax applied to higher-income earners.

How the Mechanism Works

The Medicare Levy Surcharge is an additional tax (between 1% and 1.5%) levied on Australian taxpayers who do not have private hospital cover and earn above a certain income.

For the 2025/26 financial year, the MLS income thresholds are: - Singles: $97,000 - Families: $194,000 (plus $1,500 for each dependent child after the first)

If your income is above these thresholds, the tax cost of the MLS is almost always higher than the cost of a basic private hospital policy. Buying a policy simply to avoid the tax makes financial sense.

Additionally, if you don't take out hospital cover before July 1 following your 31st birthday, you will be hit with the Lifetime Health Cover (LHC) loading, which adds 2% to your premiums for every year you are over 30 when you finally take out cover.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Anyone earning over $97,000 (singles) or $194,000 (families) must review their cover immediately to avoid paying unnecessary tax.

Further Information

• PrivateHealth.gov.au: Medicare Levy Surcharge

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

The First Home Super Saver (FHSS) scheme lets you aggressively save for your first home deposit inside the incredibly low-tax environment of your superannuation fund.

How the Mechanism Works

By using voluntary concessional (before-tax) and non-concessional (after-tax) contributions, you can put up to $15,000 per financial year—and a lifetime maximum of $50,000—into your super fund explicitly designated as a deposit for your first home.

The magic of the FHSS is that these savings achieve a deemed rate of return rather than standard bank interest, and they only attract the 15% super earnings tax. Better still, any concessional contributions (like salary sacrifice) reduce your personal income tax. When you are ready to buy a house, you apply to the ATO to release these contributions alongside their deemed earnings expressly to buy your house.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Those renting who have never owned property before in Australia, who possess enough surplus cash flow to methodically save a large deposit before turning to a mortgage broker.

Further Information

• ATO: First home super saver scheme

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

Life insurance (often called "Death Cover") pays a lump sum to your dependents if you die or are diagnosed with a terminal illness. It provides absolute financial security for your family in the worst-case scenario.

How the Mechanism Works

If you are the primary breadwinner, your sudden death would instantly halt the cash flow that pays the mortgage, school fees, and daily living expenses. Life insurance provides a massive capital injection to replace that lost future income.

Many Australians have a default, low-level amount of life insurance attached to their superannuation account. However, this default cover is rarely enough to clear an average Australian mortgage, let alone provide an ongoing income stream for surviving children.

Ideal Candidate Profile

If you have a spouse, young children, or anyone else who relies financially on your income, life insurance is not optional—it is a necessity. If you are single with zero dependents and zero debt, life insurance may not be required.

Further Information

• Moneysmart: How life insurance works

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

A mathematical reality check comparing your current monthly savings rate against the actual capital required to fund your future goals.

How the Mechanism Works

Many people have abstract goals (e.g. "I want a comfortable retirement") but have never run the numbers to see if their current trajectory will get them there. By using a savings calculator, you model the effects of compounding returns over time.

You need to establish three variables: 1. Target Amount: How much capital do you need? 2. Time Horizon: How many years until you need it? 3. Assumed Rate of Return: A realistic expectation of post-inflation, post-tax returns based on your asset allocation (e.g. 5-7% for a growth portfolio).

If the calculator shows you are falling short, you must either increase your monthly savings rate, extend your time horizon, or take on more investment risk to chase higher returns.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Everyone. Hope is not a financial strategy. You must map out your cash flow and set up automated transfers to guarantee success.

Further Information

• Moneysmart: Savings goals calculator

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

A formal instruction to your superannuation fund detailing exactly who should receive your super balance and any attached life insurance payouts if you pass away.

How the Mechanism Works

Your superannuation does NOT automatically form part of your estate. Your Will does not control it. The trustee of the super fund decides who gets the money unless you tell them otherwise.

There are generally three types of nominations: 1. Binding Death Benefit Nomination (BDBN): The trustee must pay the money to the person you nominate (provided they are a valid dependent, like a spouse or child). Many BDBNs lapse after 3 years and must be renewed, though some funds offer non-lapsing BDBNs. 2. Non-Binding Nomination: Tells the trustee what you prefer, but they have the final say. They will look at your family situation at the time of your death and decide. 3. Reversionary Pension: If you are already retired and drawing a pension, this seamlessly transfers the ongoing pension payments to your spouse.

If you don't have a valid BDBN, your ex-spouse or estranged children could challenge for the money.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Everyone with a superannuation account. It takes 5 minutes to log into your portal and check who is nominated.

Further Information

• Moneysmart: Super death benefits

Understanding the Strategy

An annual audit of the personal information you have provided to our systems to ensure your strategy recommendations remain accurate.

How the Mechanism Works

The financial strategies recommended to you are dynamically generated based on your exact personal circumstances—your income, your spouse's income, your superannuation balances, and your dependents.

Because tax brackets, superannuation caps, and your personal circumstances change every single financial year, strategies that were incredibly lucrative for you last year might be useless (or actively harmful) this year.

By verifying that your data is correct for the current financial year, the rules engine can accurately identify if you are approaching the Division 296 tax limits, if you qualify for low-income offsets, or if you should pivot your focus.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Every single user must complete this task annually before acting on any other checklist items.

Further Information

• Nucleus Wealth: Financial Advice

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

A Discretionary Family Trust is a legal arrangement where a trustee holds assets (like property or shares) on behalf of a group of beneficiaries (usually your family members).

How the Mechanism Works

The absolute superpower of a discretionary family trust is "income streaming". Because the trust is "discretionary", the trustee can decide exactly which family members receive the investment income each year.

Example: If the trust generates $40,000 in dividends, the trustee can distribute that entire $40,000 to a spouse who isn't working (who will pay zero or very little tax on it), rather than distributing it to the primary breadwinner (who would pay 47% tax on it).

Furthermore, trusts provide excellent asset protection. Because you don't legally "own" the assets in the trust, creditors or lawsuits against you personally generally cannot touch the trust's assets.

However, trusts are expensive to set up and require annual accounting fees. They also cannot distribute losses to offset your personal income.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Families with substantial investable assets outside of superannuation, business owners needing asset protection, and couples with highly disparate incomes.

Further Information

• Moneysmart: Investment structures

Understanding the Strategy

A periodic review to ensure your actual portfolio balances still align with the target asset allocation weights you originally set.

How the Mechanism Works

Over time, market movements cause your portfolio to "drift". If shares perform phenomenally well, your 70% share allocation might drift up to 85%. While this feels great, it means you are now taking on significantly more risk than you originally planned. If the market suddenly crashes, you will lose far more money than you anticipated.

Rebalancing: To fix this, you must "rebalance". This involves selling the assets that have done well (shares) and buying the assets that have lagged (bonds) to bring your weights back to 70/30.

Note: At Nucleus Wealth, this rebalancing process is handled automatically within your customized portfolios, ensuring you never suffer from unintended risk drift or cash drag.

Ideal Candidate Profile

All investors should check their portfolio drift at least annually, or ensure they are using a provider that automates the process.

Further Information

• Nucleus Wealth: Investment Portal

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

Asset allocation is the process of deciding what percentage of your total wealth should be invested in "Growth" assets (like shares and property) versus "Defensive" assets (like cash and bonds).

How the Mechanism Works

Your asset allocation drives over 90% of your long-term returns. It is far more important than picking individual stocks. - Growth Assets (Shares/Property): Offer high long-term returns to beat inflation, but are highly volatile in the short term. - Defensive Assets (Bonds/Cash): Offer low returns, but protect your capital during stock market crashes.

A young person with 30 years until retirement should generally hold a very high percentage of Growth assets (e.g. 80-100%) because they have the time to recover from crashes. A retiree drawing down capital needs a higher percentage of Defensive assets to ensure they don't have to sell shares at the bottom of a crash to buy groceries.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Every investor must explicitly define their target weights (e.g. 70% Shares, 30% Bonds) based on their time horizon.

Further Information

• Moneysmart: Choose your investments

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

Making a personal superannuation contribution using your own post-tax savings and then claiming a tax deduction on it in your personal tax return.

How the Mechanism Works

This effectively achieves the exact same tax outcome as salary sacrificing. Instead of asking your employer to do it out of your pre-tax wage, you simply transfer cash from your bank account into your super fund.

Before you lodge your tax return, you must lodge a "Notice of Intent to Claim a Tax Deduction" form with your super fund and receive written acknowledgment. Once processed, the fund taxes the contribution at 15% and you claim the full amount as a deduction against your taxable income. This strategy is limited by the concessional contributions cap ($30,000 for 2025/26), which includes your employer's SG contributions.

Ideal Candidate Profile

This is crucial for self-employed individuals who do not have an employer making SG contributions. It’s also incredibly powerful for employees who experienced a sudden windfall (like a bonus, inheritance, or capital gain near the end of the year) and haven't had time to set up regular salary sacrificing.

Further Information

• ATO: Personal super contributions

Understanding the Strategy

Risk tolerance is an evaluation of how much market volatility you can emotionally and financially withstand before you panic and make terrible decisions (like selling everything at the bottom of a crash).

How the Mechanism Works

There are two distinct parts to risk: 1. Capacity for Risk: This is pure math. If you need your money in 6 months to buy a house, you have zero capacity for risk. If you are 25 and saving for retirement, you have a massive capacity for risk. 2. Attitude to Risk: This is pure emotion. Even if the math says you should be 100% in shares, if a 20% market drop causes you severe anxiety and sleepless nights (failing the "sleep test"), your attitude to risk dictates you need a more conservative portfolio.

Your final asset allocation must be a compromise between the returns you need and the volatility you can emotionally stomach.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Before investing a single dollar, you must understand your risk profile.

Further Information

• Nucleus Wealth: Risk Profiling

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

The catch-up concessional contributions policy allows individuals to carry forward any unused parts of their concessional cap from the previous 5 financial years. This enables you to make massive, one-off tax-deductible contributions to superannuation without paying excess non-concessional penalties.

How the Mechanism Works

If your total super balance was less than $500,000 on 30 June of the previous financial year, any difference between your actual concessional contributions (employer + personal) and the historical caps over the last 5 years is banked.

For the 2025/26 financial year, the base concessional cap is $30,000. However, if you haven't contributed at all for 5 years, your actual cap for this year could be upwards of $130,000+ when combining the current year and the accrued past years.

In a high-income year—for example, when receiving a large bonus or selling a huge asset triggering Capital Gains Tax—you can make an enormous personal contribution to offset the gain. It completely legally neutralises the harsh marginal tax rates triggered in that single high-earning year.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Individuals earning an unusually high taxable income who took time out of the workforce, lived overseas, or were simply not maximising their limits in the last 5 years.

Further Information

• ATO: Catch-up concessional contributions

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) insurance pays a lump sum if you become permanently disabled and are unable to work ever again. It is designed to cover medical costs, clear massive debts (like a mortgage), and replace your lost future income.

How the Mechanism Works

The most critical part of reviewing TPD insurance is understanding the definition of disability used in your policy: - Any Occupation: Pays out only if you are disabled to the point you cannot work in any job suited to your education, training, or experience. This is a very high bar to clear (e.g., a surgeon who loses a hand could still teach, so they wouldn't get paid). - Own Occupation: Pays out if you can no longer perform the duties of your specific current job (e.g., the surgeon gets paid because they can't be a surgeon anymore).

Tax Implications inside Super: Because "Own Occupation" is a much looser definition, superannuation laws generally prohibit it from being held inside super. If you hold TPD inside super, it is almost certainly "Any Occupation" cover. If you want the safety of "Own Occupation", you must hold it outside super and pay for it with after-tax money.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Anyone with dependents, a mortgage, or significant future earning potential. Specialized professionals (like doctors or tradespeople) must critically evaluate whether they need "Own Occupation" cover outside super.

Further Information

• Moneysmart: TPD insurance

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

The government strictly limits how much money you can put into the low-tax environment of superannuation each year, and how much you can transfer into the tax-free retirement phase. These limits are periodically indexed to wage growth.

How the Mechanism Works

For the 2025/26 financial year, you must carefully monitor three major caps to avoid excess tax penalties:

1. Concessional Contributions Cap: The limit for pre-tax contributions (like employer SG and salary sacrifice) is $30,000 per year.
2. Non-Concessional Contributions Cap: The limit for after-tax contributions is $120,000 per year (or up to $360,000 if using the 3-year bring-forward rule).
3. Transfer Balance Cap (TBC): The total amount of super you can transfer into a tax-free pension account remains at $1.9 million. Any balance above this must remain in an accumulation account where earnings are taxed at 15%.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Anyone actively engaged in maximizing their wealth via superannuation must project their balances forward. Breaching the $1.9m TBC or the $30k/$120k contribution caps can trigger severe tax penalties and administrative headaches.

Further Information

• ATO: Key superannuation rates and thresholds

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

The legal entity (individual, joint names, superannuation fund, company, or family trust) that holds the legal title to your investment assets.

How the Mechanism Works

Your investment structure completely dictates how the income and capital gains from those assets are taxed. It is arguably the most important decision you make before buying an asset, because transferring an asset between structures later triggers massive Capital Gains Tax and stamp duty.

Tax Rate Comparisons: - Superannuation: 15% tax on earnings, 10% on long-term capital gains. (The absolute best structure for wealth accumulation). - Corporate (Company): Capped at a flat 25% or 30% tax rate. Great for compounding wealth, but no 50% CGT discount when selling assets. - Individual/Joint: Taxed at your personal marginal tax rate (up to 45% + Medicare levy). - Family Trust: Does not pay tax itself; instead, it distributes the pre-tax income to the beneficiaries (e.g. family members) who then pay tax at their personal marginal rates.

If you are buying a massive parcel of shares or an investment property, you must seek advice on which structure will legally minimize your tax over the next 30 years.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Anyone investing outside of superannuation.

Further Information

• ATO: Business structures

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

Income protection insurance replaces up to 75% of your gross income if you are temporarily unable to work due to illness or injury. It ensures your family can continue paying the mortgage and living expenses while you recover.

How the Mechanism Works

Unlike TPD insurance (which pays a single lump sum for permanent disability), income protection pays a monthly salary for temporary disabilities (e.g., recovering from severe back surgery for 6 months).

Key variables to review: - Waiting Period: How long you must be off work before payments start (commonly 30, 60, or 90 days). The longer the wait, the cheaper the premium. You should align the waiting period with your emergency cash reserves and sick leave balance. - Benefit Period: How long the policy will pay out (e.g., 2 years, 5 years, or up to age 65).

Tax Implications: Income protection premiums are generally tax-deductible if held outside superannuation because the payout is taxed as ordinary income.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Anyone who relies entirely on their salary to pay their debts and living expenses. If you don't have massive passive income streams to live off, you need income protection.

Further Information

• Moneysmart: Income protection insurance

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

Salary sacrificing is an arrangement with your employer where you agree to forego a portion of your future pre-tax salary. Instead of paying it to you as cash, your employer pays it directly into your superannuation fund.

How the Mechanism Works

Money salary sacrificed into super is only taxed at the concessional rate of 15% (or 30% if your income exceeds $250,000 via Division 293 tax). For most working Australians, their marginal tax rate is between 32.5% and 45% (plus the Medicare levy).

By routing money directly into super, you bypass your high personal marginal tax rate, generating an instant, guaranteed tax saving on every dollar contributed.

The most important rule for the 2025/26 financial year is that your combined employer super guarantee (SG) and your salary sacrifice amounts must not exceed the concessional contributions cap of $30,000, otherwise you may face excess tax.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Employed individuals who have surplus cash flow and wish to automate their investments while achieving immediate personal tax relief. If your marginal rate is 32.5% or higher, the arbitrary 15% super tax generates instant guaranteed savings.

Further Information

• ATO: Salary sacrificing super

At Nucleus Wealth, we believe in objective, data-driven financial decisions to protect and grow your wealth. The following guide is designed to help you navigate your options clearly.

Understanding the Strategy

Super balance equalisation is the strategic process of ensuring that both partners in a couple have roughly the same amount of money in their respective superannuation accounts, rather than one partner holding the vast majority of the wealth.

How the Mechanism Works

The Australian tax system taxes individuals, not couples. Because superannuation caps apply per person, a couple can shelter twice as much wealth from tax if they balance their accounts.

There are two massive reasons to equalise balances for 2025/26: 1. The $1.9m Transfer Balance Cap (TBC): You can only transfer $1.9 million into a tax-free retirement pension. If one spouse has $3 million and the other has $500,000, the wealthy spouse will have $1.1 million stuck in an accumulation account paying 15% tax on earnings. If equalised to $1.75 million each, the entire combined $3.5 million balance is completely tax-free in retirement. 2. Division 296 Tax ($3m Cap): The government's proposed Division 296 tax applies an additional 15% tax on the earnings of super balances exceeding $3 million. By equalising, a couple can effectively shelter up to $6 million ($3 million each) from this punitive tax before it applies.

You can equalise balances via spouse contributions, contribution splitting, or adjusting who salary sacrifices based on current balances.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Couples where one partner earns significantly more than the other, or couples with a combined super wealth approaching $1.9 million or $3 million.

Further Information

• ATO: The transfer balance cap