How to take advantage of the 'coronavirus clause' that could save you $5,000 in just six months

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Australians are being urged to take advantage of a coronavirus clause that allows them to save $5,000 in tax over six months.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has announced taxpayers would be allowed to withdraw up to $10,000 from their superannuation, tax free, by the end of June plus another $10,000 by the end of September.

Australians affected by COVID-19 are being allowed to access their super instead of being forced to wait until they retire in their late fifties or sixties.

Economists fear one million jobs were lost last week alone, which would overnight take unemployment to the highest level since the 1930s Great Depression. 

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Australians are being urged to take advantage of a coronavirus clause that allows them to save $5,000 in tax over six months. Pictured is a Centrelink queue at Flemington in Melbourne's inner west

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg (left with Prime Minister Scott Morrison) has announced taxpayers would be allowed to withdraw up to $10,000 from their superannuation, tax free, by the end of June plus another $10,000 by the end of September. Australians affected by COVID-19 are being allowed to access their super instead of being forced to wait until they retire in their late fifties or sixties

Under the new coronavirus rules, individuals can also make voluntary super contributions and only pay 15 per cent tax instead of the much higher marginal personal income tax rate of 32.5 per cent for income earned between $37,001 and $90,000.  

Australian National University Crawford School of Public Policy researchers Robert Breunig, a professor of economics, and Tristram Sainsbury, a research fellow, said this rule could potentially save someone $5,000 in tax over six months. 

The experts from ANU's Tax and Transfer Policy Institute said this would most likely require some help from an accountant to structure their salary sacrificing arrangements 

'You can do it mostly risk-free,' they said in a piece for The Conversation website.

'But you do have to rearrange your financial affairs a bit, and deal with some bureaucratic hurdles.'

As part of a second stimulus package, worth $66.1billion, the government announced a series of superannuation measures to help Australians facing financial stress as a result of coronavirus.

Under the coronavirus rules, individuals can also make voluntary super contributions and only pay 15 per cent tax instead of the much higher marginal personal income tax rate of 32.5 per cent for income earned between $37,001 and $90,000. Pictured is Westfield at Parramatta in Sydney's west with fewer customers than usual

They can access $10,000 from their super savings by June 30 and another $10,000 from July 1 for another three months, without this affecting their Centrelink or Veterans Affairs entitlements.

Australia's superannuation savings were worth $3trillion at the end of 2019, before Chinese authorities confirmed the first cases of coronavirus in Wuhan. 

Employer contributions to super have been compulsory since 1992.

The savings of Australian workers are now at risk, with the federal government last month closing down clubs, pubs, cinemas and gyms in a bid to slow the spread of coronavirus.

Deloitte Access Economics partner Chris Richardson, an economist, estimates one million jobs were lost last week. 

That means Australia now has a jobless rate of 12.4 per cent - the highest in 88 years - although official labour force statistics for March won't be released until April 16. 

In February, before COVID-19 cases escalated in Australia, there were 699,100 people without a job. 

Westpac chief economist Bill Evans was this week expecting Australia's jobless rate to triple from 5.1 per cent to 17 per cent by the end of June. 

This would be the highest level of unemployment since 1932 at the height of the Great Depression.

On Thursday, Mr Evans updated his forecast to say unemployment would now peak at nine per cent in the June quarter.

He credited the government's third stimulus package, worth $130billion, which includes a Jobkeeper program to give six million workers a $1,500 fortnightly wage subsidy.