Who this calculator is for

Hospital workers, NFP employees, Public Benevolent Institution (PBI) staff, and charity employees who salary package living expenses or meal entertainment and want to understand the real impact on their Child Care Subsidy rate, HELP repayments, and take-home pay. Also suitable for employees of standard employers who want to model the RFBA impact of general salary packaging.

What it calculates

• Adjusted Taxable Income (ATI) before and after packaging — this is the figure used for CCS, FTB, HELP and MLS
• Reportable Fringe Benefits Amount (RFBA) on your income statement
• Income tax saving and Medicare levy saving from the lower taxable income
• HELP compulsory repayment — before and after (RFBA is always counted in full for HELP)
• Your CCS rate before and after — the net impact on weekly childcare costs
• Medicare Levy Surcharge exposure if RFBA pushes household income over a threshold

Salary packaging caps — 2025–26

The amount you can package depends on your employer type. Public hospital workers can package up to $9,010 per year in living expenses under the Section 57A FBT exemption. PBI and eligible charity workers have a higher cap of $15,900 per year. Both employer types also have a separate $2,650 annual cap for meal entertainment and holiday accommodation. Packaging above these caps generates taxable fringe benefits rather than exempt ones.

Standard employer vs Section 57A exempt employer

For Section 57A exempt employers (public hospitals, PBIs, qualifying charities): the RFBA counted in your ATI for CCS and FTB is reduced — Centrelink applies a multiplier of 0.53 to the grossed-up RFBA because the FBT rate is 47% (1 − 0.47 = 0.53). For standard employers, 100% of the RFBA is added to ATI. HELP repayment income and Medicare Levy Surcharge always use the full RFBA regardless of employer type.

NSW Health shared tax saving arrangement

NSW Health employees commonly share the packaging tax saving with NSW Health under an arrangement where the employee keeps a set percentage of the saving. This does not reduce the RFBA generated — the grossed-up amount is still reported on your income statement. The calculator includes a NSW Health sharing percentage field to model your actual take-home benefit accurately.

Why packaging can reduce your CCS unexpectedly

Many salary packaging calculators show only the income tax saving. They do not show the RFBA impact on CCS, FTB, HELP, or MLS. For standard employers, packaging $15,000 generates around $28,302 of grossed-up RFBA — all of which is added to ATI for CCS purposes. This can push a family into a lower CCS rate band, costing hundreds or thousands of dollars per year in higher childcare fees. For S57A exempt employers the effect is smaller but still real.

• Salary Packaging and Child Care Subsidy — full guide
• NSW Health salary packaging and CCS
• Hospital workers — how salary packaging affects CCS
• How the salary packaging calculator works