Campfire Community Blog

Campfire Community Blog

5 Quick Tips to Ensure You’re Utilising Your Benefits!

Salary packaging offers great benefits to employees of many not-for-profit organisations. The ability to salary package a maximum of $15,900 pre-tax to everyday expenses (such as rent, mortgage, school fees and more) delivers incredible tax savings. And there’s also the ‘extra’ $2,650 available to salary package towards holiday accommodation and dining expenses!

However, some GO Salary members might not consider all the options available to them. Here are some ways to ensure you are utilising the full potential of the available benefits.

1. KNOW YOUR LIMITS!

The first step is understanding the salary packaging limits available. For those who work at qualifying not-for-profits in sectors such as medical research, aged care, disability support, employment services and other public benevolent institutions, the limit for general expenses is $15,900 per annum. For those working in public health and ambulance services, the limit is $9,010. These limits relate to pre-tax payments and reimbursements for expenses such as rent, mortgage, credit card repayments, loan repayments, school fees, rates and water, and more. The second limit available relates to holiday accommodation, venue hire, and meal entertainment (dining) expenses. This is $2,650 annually. Although you don’t need to utilise your entire limits, it’s good to know what you have available. 

2. LOG INTO GO SALARY AND SEE WHERE YOU STAND

If you’re a GO Salary member, you have the tools to see if you’re utilising your full salary package potential! By logging in and going to the ‘My Salary Package’ page, you will be able to see two limit wheels/pie charts: one for the general expenses limit and another for the extra $2,650 limit. If you use other employer-provided benefits, such as a car, this will also be taken into account. You will be able to see if your benefits are being fully utilised, or if you have some room to salary package more.

 The GO Salary portal also gives you access to see your current amounts, view past reports, and know your upcoming expected deductions. If there’s room in your limits to add expenses, it’s also easy to do this yourself instantly (see below).

3. ADD EXPENSES/CLAIMS TO INCREASE YOUR SALARY PACKAGE

Is the information in the portal showing that you have more of your limits to use? If so, you can easily add some more expenses! For example, let’s say your rent is $13,000 per year. The wheels in your portal will show that there’s an additional $2,900 in expenses you can add to reach your maximum $15,900. By hitting the ‘Add Household Expense’ button, you can add things like health insurance, car loan payments, credit card payments, etc. By using multiple expenses, you will reach your $15,900. Don’t have any further expenses? Consider the salary packaging card!

If you have room in your $2,650 holiday accommodation/meal entertainment limit, you can add a meal entertainment card (or increase your payments if you already have one), or upload some invoices to claim. This is easy to do with the ‘Add Accomm/Meals Receipts’ button. 

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4. KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR GO SALARY'S MESSAGES

Once you are up and running with GO Salary, we’ll send you a message if you’re not utilising your full $15,900 limit. Please keep an eye on your GO Salary inbox, which you can access by logging in. We’ll only send you messages when it’s important information relating to your salary package.

Likewise, we also send out communications around November each year to those who haven’t used their holiday accommodation/meal entertainment limit. Just as a reminder to save those holiday invoices and get them uploaded!

We find that 88% of members take action once we notify them that there’s extra pre-tax money that can be salary packaged. So make sure you read anything which hits your inbox!

5. GET IN TOUCH IF YOU NEED A HAND!

We are here to help! Members can send us a message via their secure GO Salary inbox, send us an email, or call our helpful team. We can check your limits if you’re uncertain and help you make changes to your salary package.

Please note that GO Salary is unable to provide financial advice. The information above is of a general nature and we recommend you seek your own financial advice where required.

Read more about Ben Markovic 

Ben Markovic
18 December 2024

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