If you work for a public hospital or an eligible not-for-profit, salary packaging is a real pay rise — but the headline "tax saving" isn't what lands in your pocket. This tool subtracts the packaging fee and the HELP repayment add-back that most calculators leave out, so you see the true annual benefit.
| Per year | Without packaging | With packaging | Difference |
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"In your pocket" counts the packaged money as reaching you (it pays your bills pre-tax), so the difference is the genuine gain. FY2026–27 resident rates, 2% Medicare levy, and the 2026–27 HELP thresholds — the same figures as our take-home calculator.
When you package, say, $9,010 in a public hospital, two things happen to your HELP repayment income, and they don't cancel out:
The net move in your HELP repayment income is therefore up by about $9,010 × 0.8868 ≈ $7,990, not down. If you carry a HELP debt, your compulsory repayment rises — sometimes enough to swallow a third of the tax saving. Packaging can still be worth it, but the honest figure is what's left after that, which is what the tool shows.
Yes, and usually not the way people expect — it can push them up. Compulsory HELP repayments are based on repayment income, which adds your reportable fringe benefits amount (RFBA) back on top of your taxable income. Packaging lowers your taxable income by the cash you sacrifice but the RFBA is the grossed-up value (your cash amount times 1.8868), so at the $9,010 public-hospital cap your repayment income moves up by about $7,990 overall. If you have a HELP debt, that raises the compulsory repayment and eats into the tax saving, which is exactly what this calculator subtracts.
Public hospitals and public ambulance services are FBT-exempt under section 57A, so you can package up to $9,010 of everyday expenses each FBT year (that is a grossed-up taxable value of $17,000) plus a separate meal-entertainment and venue-hire cap of $2,650 (grossed-up $5,000). Not-for-profit health-promotion charities and public benevolent institutions have a higher general cap of $15,900 (grossed-up $30,000). The caps are per employer, so working across two eligible employers does not double them the way people hope.
Almost. Packaging removes that amount from your taxable income, so you save your marginal tax rate plus the 2% Medicare levy on it. From that, subtract the packaging provider's administration fee, and subtract any extra HELP repayment the add-back triggers if you have a study debt. This calculator does all four steps, so the headline figure is the net benefit rather than the gross tax saving.
It can. The reportable fringe benefits amount is added back for several income tests, not just HELP — the Medicare levy surcharge (if you do not hold private hospital cover), Division 293 extra super tax, and Family Tax Benefit all use an income figure that includes it. This tool models the tax, Medicare levy and HELP effects but does not model those threshold tests, so if your income is near one of them, check it separately before deciding.