Who's the best person to speak to re. HECS type stuff

[Astrid]

This is what payroll does with your pay when taxing it:
Payroll will deduct tax and HELP/SFSS as per what you have selected on TFN declaration, if at a later date things change, then complete a PAYG Withholding Variation (adding or removing HELP debts, changing to or from tax free threshold etc.)

All the deductions are lumped together. There is no differentiation between what was deducted for PAYGW tax, HELP or SFSS. At tax time when you do your tax return. Your whole liability will be calculated together based on your taxable income.
So if you have a salary of $48,000, then both PAYGW and HELP will be deducted. At tax time, if after your deductions your taxable income is only $45,000 and below the HELP threshold, then your tax debt calculated will only include PAGYW, not any HELP. If more has been deducted, then you get that back.


It often looks like people have not paid enough HELP when they do their tax returns. It seems that the ATO calculates the PAYGW component, first then everything else after. So often, if you owe something, then payroll gets blames for not deducting enough HELP. What tends to happen if you pay is up and down through the year, or moves from a no HELP bracket to a HELP one, that some pays may not have HELP calculated on them (as per the ATO tax tables) and others will do, but at the end of the year they are all lumped together. This often can create a shortfall in tax/HELP deducted.

At any time you can opt for more tax to be deducted from your pay. If you over pay, you get that back with your tax return (assuming you have no other tax liability that will absorb it). If you think that your pay may be up and down, it is something worth considering.

Just a warning. If you start study at the beginning of a calender year, the ATO will apply your HELP liability to your whole financial year income. Really sucks, as the first half of the year you don't know you have a HELP debt, then in the last half you do have one. Been stun like that myself when working full-time and studying part-time.