What's changed on AussieCalc

Follow-up shipping of the P2 polish items from the AdSense audit. New work: 6 standalone deep-guide pages at /guides/{stamp-duty,mortgage,lmi,income-tax,super,capital-gains} replacing the single anchored /guides page; this dedicated /changelog page; inline SVG chart visualisations on the four most-trafficked calculators (mortgage interest/principal split, super compound growth, income-tax bracket breakdown, LMI premium curve by LVR); per-page Open Graph and Twitter Card images (27 unique 1200×630 PNGs) replacing the previously-shared og-image.png; /about expanded from 512 to ~1,380 words with rate-update workflow and AdSense disclosure; site-wide "Rates current as of May 2026" freshness signal in every footer linking to this page. Organization schema updated with knowsAbout topic tags and a refreshed brand logo reference. Real X/LinkedIn social profiles for Organization.sameAs are intentionally left for when those accounts actually exist.

Major editorial pass across every calculator, state stamp-duty page, and the homepage. Each calculator received a worked example with bracket-by-bracket arithmetic, a common-scenarios section, an edge-cases-&-pitfalls section, an expanded FAQ, and a methodology block citing primary sources. Mortgage / super / income-tax / LMI now run 2,300–2,500 words each (was 813–931 in March).

Each calculator and state page now carries a visible editorial byline, a reviewed date, and structured-data Article, HowTo and updated FAQPage JSON-LD. The eight state stamp-duty pages were rewritten with state-specific historical and policy context (NSW property-tax-choice debate, VIC Vacant Residential Land Tax expansion, QLD aggregation-rule retreat, ACT 20-year duty phase-out, SA commercial-duty abolition, TAS short-stay-rental debate, WA off-the-plan rebate cycle, NT polynomial duty formula). Pairwise vocabulary overlap between states fell from 0.54–0.69 to 0.34–0.43.

Homepage gained a "What's new for 2025–26" editorial intro, a six-scenario "Which calculator should I use?" decision guide, and this changelog. Privacy policy corrected to reference Cloudflare Pages (was Netlify, stale). New Terms of Service page added. About expanded with rate-update workflow detail and an explicit AdSense disclosure.

Updated the LMI calculator with the March 2026 Helia and QBE rate sheets for owner-occupier principal-and-interest loans. Premium adjustments at the 85–90% LVR band and a small uptick at 95% LVR. State stamp-duty surcharges on the premium remain unchanged.

Victoria's Vacant Residential Land Tax (VRLT), previously limited to 16 inner-Melbourne council areas, now applies statewide from 1 January 2025 under the State Taxation Acts Amendment Act 2023. Year-one rate 1% of capital improved value, escalating to 2% in year two and 3% in year three of continuous vacancy. Updated the Victorian stamp duty page with the new scope; calculator output unchanged (VRLT is a holding tax, not a transfer-duty surcharge).

Following 2024 legislation, indexation on accumulated HECS-HELP debt is now applied at the lower of CPI and the Wage Price Index, with retrospective effect to 2023. The income tax calculator reflects the new rule in its HECS estimate and the methodology block; relevant FAQ entries updated.

The legislated Super Guarantee schedule reached its permanent 12.0% setting on 1 July 2025 (was 11.5% for 2024–25). The superannuation calculator applies the bracketed schedule explicitly — 11.5% for any projection period before 1 July 2025 and 12.0% from that date onward. All worked examples, FAQs and methodology blocks updated.

The concessional contributions cap for the 2025–26 financial year is $30,000 (up from $27,500 for 2023–24, unchanged from 2024–25). Carry-forward rules continue to apply for individuals with a total super balance below $500,000 at the previous 30 June. Updated the super calculator and the FAQ entries that reference the cap.

Reader-reported issue: the CGT calculator was rounding intermediate cost-base figures before applying the 50% discount, producing a one-or-two-dollar discrepancy versus the ATO worksheet on assets sold for round-number prices. Fixed the rounding order (apply discount first, then round to whole dollars at the final step). Thanks to the reader who flagged this.

New calculators: personal loan repayments and car / home insurance estimator. The insurance estimator is anchored to APRA quarterly general-insurance statistics and Insurance Council of Australia data — it is not a quoting engine and the methodology block explains the limitations explicitly.

Dedicated pages for NSW, VIC, QLD, WA, SA, TAS, ACT and NT. Each carries its own rate schedule, common-price-points table, FHB concession card and FAQ. The all-state stamp duty calculator remains the comparison tool.

Revenue NSW's annual review of the premium duty threshold left the 5.5% premium rate band starting at $1,168,000 unchanged for 2024–25. The NSW page and the all-state calculator retain the threshold; methodology note updated to reflect the most recent review date.

South Australia became the first Australian jurisdiction to remove the price cap entirely on the first-home-buyer new-home stamp-duty exemption. From 6 June 2024, eligible FHBs pay zero conveyance duty on a new home regardless of value (established homes still attract full duty for FHBs). Updated the SA stamp duty page with the new policy and added an explicit worked example showing the differential.

The revised Stage 3 tax cuts took effect on 1 July 2024. Bracket changes: 19% → 16% on $18,201–$45,000; 32.5% → 30% on $45,001–$135,000 (was $45,001–$120,000); 37% on $135,001–$190,000 (was $120,001–$180,000); 45% on $190,000+ (was $180,000+). Every resident taxpayer pays less personal income tax than under the pre-cut schedule. The income tax calculator applies the post-Stage-3 schedule throughout 2024–25 and 2025–26.

Queensland's Miles Labor government raised the FHB transfer-duty concession threshold to $700,000 for established homes (with taper to $799,999) and removed the price cap entirely for new-build first homes. Updated the QLD page with the revised schedule and a worked example showing the new-vs-established differential — which is now the largest implicit subsidy for FHB new-build purchases of any state.

Annual LMI rate refresh from both Helia and QBE. Investor and SMSF premium overlays now run 15–25% above owner-occupier rates (was 10–20%). The LMI calculator retains the owner-occupier rate sheet as the displayed default; the methodology note explains the overlay range for investor / SMSF scenarios.

Housing Australia (formerly NHFIC) removed the place cap on the First Home Guarantee for 2024–25, after the scheme repeatedly hit its cap and excluded otherwise-eligible buyers. Updated the LMI calculator "scenarios" section and the related-FAQ entries.

The annual property-tax-instead-of-stamp-duty option for eligible NSW first home buyers (introduced January 2023) was wound back by the incoming Labor government and closed to new entrants on 30 June 2023. Buyers who opted in during the six-month window are grandfathered. Updated the NSW page with the historical context and an explicit FAQ entry covering grandfathered buyers.

AussieCalc went live with the original six calculators: stamp duty, mortgage repayments, income tax, superannuation, LMI and capital gains tax, plus six explainer guides. No build pipeline, no framework, one HTML file per page — a deliberate choice for long-term maintainability.