Salary Sacrifice Calculator
Compare your 2026-27 tax with and without salary sacrificing to super, and see what each dollar of take-home pay you give up actually buys in retirement savings.
- Sacrificed amounts are taxed at 15% inside the fund instead of your marginal rate, which is where the saving comes from.
- The 2026-27 concessional cap is $32,500. Employer SG and your sacrifice both count towards it.
| Line | No sacrifice | With sacrifice |
|---|---|---|
| Taxable income | $100,000 | $90,000 |
| Income tax + Medicare | $22,520 | $19,320 |
| Take-home pay | $77,480 | $70,680 |
| Extra into super | $8,500 |
Resident rates for 2026-27 with the tax-free threshold claimed. Assumes your employer keeps paying SG on your pre-sacrifice salary. Sacrificed super is a reportable super contribution, so it does not reduce HELP repayment income.
How salary sacrifice saves tax
You agree with your employer to take less salary and have the difference paid into super before tax ever touches it. Sacrifice $10,000 from a $100,000 salary and your taxable income drops to $90,000: tax and Medicare fall by $3,200, take-home pay falls by $6,800, and $8,500 lands in your fund after the 15% contributions tax. Giving up $6,800 of spending money to bank $8,500 is the whole pitch in one sentence. This tool sits alongside the rest of our tax calculators if you want the full pay picture.
The saving scales with your marginal rate under the 2026-27 tax brackets. The same $10,000 sacrifice saves $3,200 in the 30% bracket but $4,700 in the top bracket, because the sacrificed dollars would otherwise have been taxed at 45% plus the Medicare levy. In the 15% bracket the arithmetic barely moves: the fund pays 15% anyway, so the arrangement earns its keep from the 30% bracket up.
Salary packaging vs salary sacrifice
The two terms get used interchangeably, but packaging is the umbrella. Salary packaging means paying for anything out of pre-tax salary: super, cars, laptops, or living expenses if you work for a charity or public hospital. Salary sacrificing to super is the specific arrangement this page calculates, and it is the simplest of the lot because super has its own flat 15% contributions tax.
Packaged cars and other benefits work differently: they can attract fringe benefits tax through your employer and show up on your income statement as reportable fringe benefits. If a car is the benefit you are weighing up, the novated lease tax calculator models that pre-tax deduction instead.
Watch-outs before you sign the form
Worth checking first
- The $32,500 concessional cap for 2026-27 counts employer SG plus your sacrifice together
- Confirm with payroll that your 12% SG stays based on your pre-sacrifice salary
- Sacrifice agreements only work on future salary, so set them up before the pay period starts
What sacrifice does not do
- It does not cut your HELP repayment: sacrificed super is added back to repayment income
- It does not give you access to the money; super stays locked away until a condition of release
- It does not escape tax entirely; the fund still deducts 15% on the way in
The HELP add-back trips people up every year. If you carry a study loan, run your pre-sacrifice income through the HECS repayment calculator to see the repayment that still applies. To estimate the employer SG side of your cap, use the super guarantee calculator.
Frequently asked questions
Does salary sacrifice reduce taxable income?
How much can I salary sacrifice into super?
Is salary sacrificing worth it on my income?
Does salary sacrifice reduce my HECS repayment?
What is the 15% contributions tax?
What happens if I go over the concessional cap?
Salary packaging and salary sacrifice: same thing?
Sources
Narelle Hartigan is a CPA-qualified tax accountant with over a decade of experience in Australian personal taxation and payroll. She founded PAYG Calculator Australia to make tax withholding easy for every Australian worker to understand.