Is there any benefit in salary packaging professional memberships? [AUSTRALIA]

[stripey]

Hello to the Australian brains trust out there!

Just wondering whether there is any real advantage in salary packaging professional membership fees instead of claiming as a more standard tax deduction? Annually I have about $2-3k of fees (exchange rate dependent, and of which most are not really optional).

Enquiring minds want to know...

Thanks in advance.

[marty998]

Just means you don't have to wait until tax time for the tax benefit/refund.... you effectively get it at the time of paying the costs because it's deducted from pre-tax salary.

So the benefit is timing, not actual dollars.

For those that don't know, anything you pay from pre-tax dollars renders that expense ineligible to claim as a work related expense (you can't double dip).

[stripey]

Cheers- that's what I thought :)

I had so much trouble explaining to some poor guy over the phone that no, I really wasn't interested in a novated car lease. He didn't really accept that nothing they could offer would be more affordable than a rarely-used already-depreciated car that I could get serviced by family members for next to nothing.