Frequently Asked Questions

For Employees

There isn’t one. Salary packaging is approved by the ATO. Your employer works with us to make sure your salary packaging arrangement meets all the required taxation regulations.

Yes. There is a cap on how much of your pre-tax income you can package. This amount depends on which industry you work in.

If you work in the not-for-profit, public health or charity sectors and you have salary packaged to benefits like a mortgage or rent, your Payment Summary will detail the value of the packaged benefits. There is no income or fringe benefits tax payable on the reported amounts. The reported amount can have an impact on your HELP/HECS debt repayment amount or any Government benefits you receive.

If you have a Novated Lease, we normally structure your salary deductions so that there is no reportable amounts for the Novated Lease on your Payment Summary.

Just give us a call and one of our experts can explain this to you.

There’s no obvious reason why they wouldn’t. They may have had a bad experience in the past and think it’s too hard or risky. Our program is as simple and risk free as possible. Give us a call to discuss what you’re after and we can talk to your employer on your behalf.

As long as your employer offers it, anyone paying income tax is eligible. If you’re not sure, give us a call and we can explain your options in more detail.

Because you are using your pre-tax income to pay for expenses that you would normally pay from your take home pay. This reduces your taxable income and therefore you pay less tax but your commitments are still paid.

Generally, yes. Depending on your industry and your employer, you can allocate varying amounts of your pre-tax income to different purchases or expenses.

After we receive the money from your employer, we can reimburse you for the expense you have paid to your nominated benefit or you can opt to have funds paid directly to your chosen expense.

A popular option for living expenses (e.g. bills, groceries, etc.) is one of our Salary Packaging cards. The amount deducted from your pre-tax pay is paid onto the card and you use the available balance to pay for your purchases with no need to keep invoices or receipts.

If you work at more than one employer, you can salary package through both. For example, if you are a nurse and you work at a Public Hospital but also at a not-for-profit aged care organisation, you can salary package from pre-tax an expense value of $9,010 per FBT Year with the hospital and an expense value of $15,900 per FBT Year with the aged care employer.

What you can’t do is salary package to the same benefit at more than one employer.

As soon as you leave your employer, your salary packaging arrangement with them stops. This means that you are responsible for the payment of any of the benefits that you were packaging through us.

If you have a novated lease, the services we provide to you are immediately cancelled and you are responsible to pay your lease rentals and all the car running costs directly. We reconcile your lease and if you have spent less than was deducted from your salary, we refund the surplus to you via your employer’s payroll. If you are going to a new employer, you can transfer your novated lease to them.

Please contact us directly before you leave your employer and we will guide you on your available options.

Yes. Your participation in the salary packaging arrangement is flexible, but some employers don’t like too many changes. If you go on leave without pay, your salary packaging can be suspended and restarted when you return. If you have a Novated Lease, as this is a finance arrangement with a financier, you need to be aware that monthly rentals need to continue to be made.

Yes, your payslip should itemise your pre-tax and post-tax deductions and taxable income.

Novated Leasing

It’s subject to approval by the financier of course, but yes, as long as you can comfortably make repayments, there are no limits on the make or model of the car you prefer. You can choose a new or used car through a dealership (and save GST) or a used car from a private seller or the one you are currently driving.

Some employers prefer that their employees don’t lease luxury cars, so have a chat with us and we’ll speak with them.

No. The car is registered in your name and available for your private use. Even though the lease is arranged with your employer as a party to the agreement, it is not considered a work car.

It’s cheaper because you are using your pre-tax salary to pay for some of it. Also when you buy a new or used car from a dealer, the GST is claimed by the financier so your repayments are calculated on the GST free cost of the car, saving you thousands upfront.  On top of that, your car’s running costs such as fuel, tyres, insurance, registration renewal and service & maintenance are all included in your salary deductions.

Novated is simply a term used to describe the transfer of rights and obligations to a third party. With a Novated Lease, the lease agreement between you and the financier for the car is transferred to your employer for the period that you are employed with them or until the lease expires.

The ATO are particular about this, you’ll be leasing the car therefore there is a residual value at the end of the lease term. When you get to the end of the lease, you’ll have a range of options to finalise the lease. You can pay the residual amount and own the car outright, refinance the residual and extend the lease, sell the car, pay the residual and start a new lease or trade the car in and start a new lease.

We’ll be there for you to talk through your options.

Unfortunately not. The full benefits of a novated lease can only be realised with a properly arranged and managed lease. Give us a call to chat about the best outcome possible for you.

Yes. We can work with you to help you change over to a novated lease, saving you a bundle on tax and running costs.

Novated leases are available on cars that are 10 years old or less at the end of the lease term. Therefore if you want to lease a 7 year old car, the maximum lease term is 3 years.

Novated lease agreements last between 1-5 years.

The usual insurance policy claim processes will apply, whether you have arranged your insurance or we have. Novated lease cars must be comprehensively insured, so if the car is a write-off, your insurer will need to know the payout figure of the lease. If you are unfortunate enough for this to happen, we will guide you through what you need to do.

For Employers

We are a small business as well and we know the challenges facing smaller organisations. Whilst we deal with some employers with thousands of employees, we don’t discriminate so our products and services are available to organisations of any size. Yes – even with a single employee.

No. Employees pay a small administration fee as part of their arrangement so you don’t have to pay a thing. You may even save money by outsourcing as you can refer your employee to us as salary packaging experts, thereby minimising any risk to you.

The Government have enabled some industries to have a greater benefit from salary packaging than other sectors. On the whole, the objective is to help organisations in the public health, not-for-profit and charity sectors attract and retain staff by enabling them to offer some benefits free of tax.

It’s a no additional cost way you can recruit, reward and retain employees. As employees can package business use equipment such as laptops and cars, that’s less expense and liabilities for your business. Plus, by outsourcing your salary packaging to an experienced provider, you could even save some tax.

Your obligations to pay the lease stops as soon as the employee leaves. The employee is still responsible for the lease so the car goes with them. They can choose to pay out the lease or transfer the lease to their new employer, we’ll take care of that with them.