How does meal entertainment work?

Quality time with friends and family over a good meal at your favourite café or restaurant is all the more affordable and achievable when you salary package meal entertainment. It’s a great way to enjoy additional tax savings, stretch your pay packet further and start enjoying life more. You may use up to $2,650 of your pre-tax income per Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) year in addition to your tax-free limit for living expenses. The FBT year is from 1 April – 31 March.

Simply tell us how much pre-tax salary you want to spend on meals each pay period and we’ll regularly transfer that amount straight to your Salary Packaging and Meal Entertainment card, you simply pay as you go. There’s no need to submit claims or receipts – just present your card to pay the bill and it will automatically be deducted from your entertainment account – it’s as simple as that!

Alternatively you may upload your receipts and claim your expenses through your AccessPay account and we will repay you from your salary packaging funds.

The table below provides an outline of what you can and can’t package as meal entertainment:

What’s included What’s not included
  • Dining at a restaurant, café, pub, club, or fast food restaurant
  • Hiring professional caterers to prepare and serve food and drink
  • Attending a ball, gala event or charity dinner
  • Taxi fares to and from the restaurant or event
  • Food consumed in-flight
  • Grocery and supermarket bills
  • Alcoholic drinks that are not purchased in conjunction with a meal
  • Pre-purchased restaurant vouchers
  • Meals purchased by someone other than yourself or your spouse
  • Taxi fares that are not related to the specific meal or event claimed

Things you need to know

  • There is a limit of $2,650 each FBT year for this benefit.
  • To make the most of this benefit, you must reduce the balance on your card to $0 by 31 March each year as you cannot carry over any remaining balance to the next FBT year.
  • Your card is not able to be used for direct debit or BPay payments.
  • Overseas transactions incur a 2.99% foreign exchange fee.
  • Any transactions that don’t meet the requirements may either need to be paid back to your employer so they deduct the relevant tax or, you may need to pay income tax on the amount.

 

 

The AccessPay Salary Packaging and Meal Entertainment Card is a prepaid, reloadable Mastercard issued by EML Payment Solutions Limited ABN 30 131 436 532 AFSL 404131. Please consider if this product is right for you. Read the PDS for more information. The Target Market Determination for this product can be found here.