Salary packaging living expenses

If you work for a public or private not-for profit hospital, you can salary package up to $9,010 for living expenses and $2,650 for meals and entertainment.

Here’s an example of how it works for Jenny – a nurse who earns $1,615 each fortnight (which means her annual salary is $42,000) and has $232 deducted from her pay each fortnight for tax and medicare ($6,032 each year). She uses most of her pay to cover her living expenses.

With salary packaging, Jenny has $346 a fortnight deducted to pay her rent.

Once she starts salary packaging her pay after tax is reduced to $29,536 and her income tax reduces to $3,458. Her salary packaging is used to pay her rent, but this is now paid from her pre-tax salary by AccessPay, giving her an extra $2,574 to spend each year by salary packaging.