End of FBT Year

If you don’t claim your full salary packaging limit before midnight 31 March 2024, you will not lose this money. The balance will stay on your account for you to use in the new FBT year, which begins on Friday 1 April 2024. However, these funds will form part of your new cap, which means you may lose the potential tax savings on the cap limit you have not used from the previous FBT year.

For example, if you have $200 unspent from the 2022/23 FBT year, the maximum new deductions for capped benefits for the 2023/24 year will be $7,910, rather than $9,010.

Here are some handy tips for reducing your balance:

Living Expenses cards – you can use your Beyond Bank card to purchase Pre-Paid Visa cards, or pre-pay bills. This is a great way to zero out your card for FBT purposes, but still have the funds on hand to spend when you are ready to.

Meals and Entertainment cards – another alternative is to use your Beyond Bank card to pre book accommodation, or perhaps purchase restaurant vouchers to be used later. If you need some more ideas, email our customer service team info@salarymasters.com.au or call 1300 303 357.

Yes. You can claim and/or spend up to a combined cap limit of $2,650 each FBT year for Venue Hire and Meal Entertainment, both benefits share the one cap limit. You may also decide to package venue hire alone. The cap limit of $2,650 still applies each FBT year.

Venue Hire allows you to claim:
• Holiday accommodation
• Venue hire for events etc.

We must receive any final claims for Venue Hire and Meal Entertainment by 25 March 2024 to ensure they are part of your 2023/24 Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) year spend.

SalaryMasters will keep track of your salary packaging account and notify you if you reach your limit earlier than expected. If this happens, we will cease your Meal Entertainment deduction and postpone any further payments on those benefits until the new Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) year begins on 1 April 2024. This won’t affect payments to benefits which fall outside the cap limit — such as additional superannuation, laptops and work-related expenses. (For those customers eligible to salary package these items).

Meal Entertainment cannot be used for purchasing the following items:
• Meals or drinks from venues on-site (at your workplace)
• Alcohol, unless it is consumed when dining out with friends or family groceries
• Takeaway and home delivered meals.

Depending on your employer, there may be benefits you could salary package that don’t impact the Living Expenses or Meal Entertainment caps. These could include:
• Disability / income protection insurance premiums
• Work related expenses such as phone, tablet or laptop computers
• Professional memberships
• Self-education expenses
• A novated lease and more…

Remember that payments to your Beyond Bank card stop one pay early each FBT year. To provide you with extra time to spend your remaining balance before the end of the FBT year, your annual budget is spread over one less pay each FBT year, so no payment will be made from your last pay in March.

If you would like to confirm your current balance(s), please call the 24/7 automated account information line on 13 14 02. All you need is the member number and the telephone banking passcode.

Alternatively, you can access this information via an ATM, through your internet banking, or by using the Beyond Bank phone app, if you have linked your cards to your online account. To access your details via your Beyond Bank login click here.

Your employer is required to submit an FBT Return to the ATO annually. Much the same as your PAYG income tax deductions, depending on your employer’s history and size of company, they may be required to transfer amounts to the ATO monthly or quarterly, or they may be permitted to hold the funds until the annual tax return and then submit the amount to the ATO. We do assist some employers with this, depending on their requirements. In any case, once it has been deducted from your salary, it is held securely until payment to ATO is required.

Fringe benefits tax (FBT) is a tax the Government places on any benefit you receive from your employer related to personal use. In other words, if your employer pays for something that you use in your personal life, it creates an FBT liability for your employer.

Where your employer pays for a car on your behalf that you use outside of work, this may well result in an FBT liability for your employer. Novated leases can create this liability too, however this can be counteracted by using part of your post-tax salary along with your pre-tax salary. We refer to this post-tax salary sacrifice as an “employee contribution”. Calculating the exact amount of employee contribution you need to make to offset any FBT liability for your employer is a key part of our service, ensuring that you receive the maximum tax savings.

The Australian Tax Office (ATO) mandates the payment of Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) on your novated lease. FBT is calculated based on the taxable value of your vehicle and must be settled or offset within the current FBT year, from April 1st to March 31st. To offset FBT, a yearly sum equal to the taxable value of your vehicle is deducted from your pay after taxes, known as the Employee Contribution Method (ECM). Typically, most individuals won’t need to do anything before the FBT year concludes. However, certain customers, especially those new to a novated lease, might need to adjust their post-tax contributions to comply with ATO regulations and minimise any FBT payable.

Rather than paying the FBT directly to the ATO, ECM allows you to reduce the taxable value of your novated lease to zero by contributing your own post-tax funds to the running costs of your novated lease.

This offsets the amount of FBT you may need to pay, and you can use these post-tax funds for your novated lease vehicle expenses throughout the year. The funds are simply added to your balance for all your vehicle expenses, including ; monthly lease payments, maintenance, running costs, fuel and claims for any eligible expenses such as registration and insurance.

There are a number of options available to you if there is a shortfall:

1. You may choose to make additional post-tax contributions for the remaining pays in the FBT year to offset your shortfall.

2. You can choose to pay the remaining post-tax amount directly to SalaryMasters. The post-tax must be received on or before 31 March. If the post-tax is received after, it will be counted towards the new FBT year.

3. You can claim for Unreimbursed Running Costs. This refers to costs incurred during the period of the lease, but have not already been claimed and received a pre-tax reimbursement. This will reduce the shortfall by the claim amount that you have paid. Any claims used for this purpose cannot be claimed in the future.

4. You may be eligible to claim ‘Days Unavailable’ if your vehicle was away for non-routine service and repairs, or where the vehicle was left (with keys) with your employer. Days unavailable can only be applicable if the vehicle was unavailable for 3 days or more (this does not include when you dropped off or picked up the vehicle). Substantiation may be either in the form of a tax invoice from the mechanic showing the date the car was dropped off and picked up, or a letter from your employer confirming that they had the vehicle on site and were in possession of the keys.

If you work in the Health or Charity industries, there may be other options available to you. However, it is imperative that you contact us prior to 31 March to discuss your options.

If we do not rectify the shortfall of ECM, your employer will have to pay the FBT owing to the ATO, as the amount is now an FBT liability. In most cases, the employee will pay the employer, who then pays the ATO. We will contact you to discuss this further and organise payment. Whilst a shortfall can be offset, a liability must be paid.

If you were unable to resolve your shortfall prior to the end of the FBT year, you will be required to cover the FBT liability.

If this occurs, there are a number of options available to you:

1. Depending on your account balance, we may be able to use some of the funds in your vehicle account with SalaryMasters to pay the outstanding amount.
2. Depending on your employer’s requirements, you may be able to pay the liability over a number of pay cycles with pre-tax dollars.

3. You can pay the FBT liability directly to SalaryMasters using post-tax funds, who will then send this to your employer on your behalf.

One of the most common questions we get at this time of year is, “Why does my contribution amount differ from my original commencement plan?”

The answer is that each time we provide you with an estimate of your deductions, we use the remaining pay cycles in the FBT year (ending 31 March) to calculate the numbers. As we get closer to March you may have fewer pay cycles than estimated. This is why there may be a difference in the estimate we calculated a month ago and the contribution amount you end up starting with.

We have therefore temporarily adjusted your deductions based on how many pay cycles are left and on the pro-rata FBT requirement.

The reason for this adjustment is to minimise any shortfall and potentially offset the amount of FBT you may need to pay. Your deductions will automatically return to the proposed amount from 1 April.