5 · Income, tax and the payslip
Budgeting starts with take-home pay, and most people have never seen theirs built up line by line. This is the section nobody asks for and everybody benefits from.
Gross salary is the number people quote. Take-home pay is the number the household actually lives on, and the distance between them is made up of things most employees have never examined: tax, the Medicare levy, super, salary sacrifice, novated leases, union fees, a study loan repayment. The Income & tax tab builds that payslip in full, for each adult, and passes the result to the Budget tab automatically.
What the tab asks for
| Field | Why it is there |
|---|---|
| Full-time salary and % FTE | Lets you model three days a week, or a return from parental leave, without recalculating anything by hand |
| Employer super % | The super guarantee, worked out on the full salary |
| Extra super (salary sacrifice) % | Comes out before tax — taxed at 15% in the fund instead of your marginal rate |
| Other before-tax super ($/yr) | A personal deductible contribution. Enter the amount before the 15% contributions tax |
| After-tax super ($/yr) | A non-concessional contribution from money already taxed — moved from your savings, not created |
| Pre-tax deductions | Novated lease, salary packaging — reduce taxable income |
| Post-tax deductions | Union fees, social club, insurances — reduce take-home only, not tax |
The tax table is visible and editable
The resident tax brackets, the Medicare levy, the concessional super cap and the HELP repayment bands all sit on the tab as editable figures, defaulting to the 2026–27 rates. This is deliberate: rates change every year, and a model with the rates buried inside it quietly goes wrong. When the ATO table moves, updating this app is a two-minute job.
The same principle applies on the Retirement tab, where the Age Pension rates, thresholds and minimum drawdown percentages are editable, because Services Australia reviews them in March, July and September.
The single most common misconception
Salary sacrificing does not reduce your HELP repayment. The repayment is worked out on repayment income, which adds salary-sacrificed super and other pre-tax deductions straight back on. Sacrificing genuinely cuts your income tax — that money is taxed at 15% in the fund instead of your marginal rate. It does not cut the HELP repayment by a cent. On a $95,000 salary, sacrificing 10% takes income tax from $19,020 to $16,170 while the HELP repayment stays at $3,820.80.
Income that does not arrive on a payslip
Rent from an investment property, a trust distribution, an annuity, board, child support, a small business drawing. Enter each under Other income at the frequency it really arrives, and net of expenses — for a rental, that is rent after rates, insurance, agent fees, repairs and interest, not the gross rent.
Tick “taxable” and the amount stacks on top of that person’s salary at their marginal rate; untick it for amounts already taxed or genuinely tax-free.
A one-off amount is not income. An inheritance, a redundancy payment, the proceeds of a sale — none of these belong in the income boxes, because the app would then assume they arrive every year. Add them to the Balance sheet as cash, and then give them a job: a debt, a goal, or a planned purchase.
What is not modelled
Being clear about the edges is part of using any model honestly. The app does not model negative gearing, reportable fringe benefits, net investment losses, Division 293, the bring-forward rule on after-tax contributions, downsizer or spouse contributions, the government co-contribution, or private health insurance loadings and offsets beyond the low income tax offset. If your position turns on any of those, that is a conversation for a registered tax agent.