Salary Packaging
Pre-tax salary directed to benefits — cuts tax, can cut assessed borrowing.
What is Salary Packaging?
Salary packaging is an arrangement where part of your pre-tax salary is paid towards specific expenses — super, cars (novated lease), FBT-exempt benefits — rather than received as cash. Extremely common in public hospital employment for medical and allied health professionals.
Why it matters for you
Salary packaging reduces your taxable income (saving personal tax) but some lenders assess borrowing capacity based on the lower packaged figure — understating your actual capacity. Under our medico policy, lenders "gross up" packaged benefits for serviceability purposes. Matters most for hospital-employed doctors, dentists and allied health.