Deven Billimoria's Blog

Novated leases – changes? What changes?

Published September 3, 2010 Legislative Changes Leave a Comment

Feedback from our clients is so important to us – in fact, it often helps us get an understanding of their perceptions or concerns about salary packaging. And if there are concerns, we want to make sure they’re alleviated as quickly as possible.

After speaking to some of our clients recently, we’ve discovered that some think that there have been legislative changes to salary packaging of cars.

Of course, our first question was – what changes?!

There’s been a lot of buzz about potential legislative changes as a result of the Henry Tax Review. Let us assure you, however, that there have been absolutely no changes whatsoever to any ruling around packaging a novated car lease. You can still package car leases, and any associated products, just the same as always!

If you have any questions or concerns about novated car leasing, please go to our brand new Smartleasing website at www.smartleasing.com.au, or call us on 1300 144 873 – we’ll be glad to talk to you about the great savings you can make through salary packaging a car lease.

Shoes and the City

Published August 26, 2010 Business Update 3 Comments

Ever buy shoes online?

Watch this video and you just might!

Have a listen to the CEO of Zappos, an online shoe retailer, talking about their remarkable culture and customer service ethic.

I wonder whether you think Smartsalary should take a page or two out of their book? Zappos is the envy of many and they’ve certainly tickled my fancy, so I’d love to hear your thoughts.

The late management guru Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats Strategy for Breakfast.” I wonder whether the short video on Zappos’ remarkable culture has got you thinking about buying your next pair of shoes online?

Thanks for the feedback

Published August 20, 2010 Business Update Leave a Comment

Every month we include the best customer compliments in our monthly staff newsletter.

The compliments this month were quite remarkable – probably the best ever. So I thought, why not share them here?

Thanks everyone for being so generous with your feedback – I know it means a lot to our hard working staff.

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Dear Solei and Andrew,

I collected my car yesterday and am writing to thank you both for your excellent client service throughout this process.

Some years ago I explored novation options with a previous provider and the process was so complex and the support so minimal that I abandoned it and continued my lease plan arrangements.

My experience this time was totally different – your responses were prompt, the information was clear and the process quite streamlined. Your willingness to expedite the final documentation this week (resulting from my error) was so appreciated.

Please pass this note of appreciation to your senior management. I am giving similar feedback to my colleagues in DEEWR with responsibility for SmartSalary.

Best wishes
Catherine
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For Chris,

Once again, MY APOLOGIES!!!!! for getting aggressive towards you, no animosity towards meant to you, just the frustrations coming all at once, no excuses.

You handled the situation very well and stayed calm and composed and resolved the problem in a professional manner, well done mate. I wish you an excellent future in your current career, the call centre have picked a excellent worker in yourself, keep it up, you’re a credit to the company, especially dealing with irate d***heads like myself.

Much appreciated for your assistance,
J. Pilitati

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I am really impressed with the immediate emails that come back confirming any contact with SmartSalary. I work in a call centre environment and would love to know how you manage this high level of communication from within your systems.

If someone is able to contact me to discuss it would be much appreciated.

Pauline, Communications Health Corporate Network

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Hi Scott,

Thanks for your email. I believe my mum has contacted you and sorted out adjustments etc.

Thank you so much for your help, you have been the single most helpful person that I have spoken to during this process. I’m glad I’ve finally heard back from you. I have been waiting for weeks for a bill regarding my excess etc

We will be writing to SmartSalary to let someone know how fantastic you have been.

Thank you,

L. Sparg

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Hi Con,

I just wanted to write a quick note to tell you how impressed I have been with the service provided by Klaus. Not only has he completed the necessary paperwork efficiently, but he has communicated with me numerous times, even after hours.

More importantly though, he was able to provide me with some advice about my lease, which went on to effectively save me $4,500. I was very grateful for this advice.

I hope this goes some way to ensuring Klaus gains the recognition deserved.

Regards

David

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Dear Leanne,

We would like to express our sincere appreciation for the outstanding quality of customer service assistance we have received from Brad over the past few months.

Brad has consistently provided prompt, courteous and effective client service to us in our dealings with SmartSalary. He is truly an asset to your organisation.

Could you please pass on our sincere appreciation to Brad.

Yours sincerely,
M. Cooper

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Dear Pablo and Team,

Thank You!

Appreciate your expertise and assistance with my salary packaging.

Kind Regards,
Cheryl

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Katie, oh my goodness, you are so quick. Thank you so much. Very happy with your service. Thank you

Doan

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Thank you John.

That is extremely helpful of you.

I will complete the cessation form and fax it back to you asap.

May I also take this opportunity to say how efficient and prompt SmartSalary have been during all my dealings with you.

With kind regards,
V. Savage

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Hi John,

Thank you for getting back to me and for sorting the issue promptly. I appreciate it as I am going overseas and was relying on the money to pay accommodation due etc.

Thank you also for ensuring that it won’t happen again and fixing the root cause of the problem – the additional account.

Have a nice day.

Kind Regards,
Kristie

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Thanks Leanne

I hope you are substantive and are remaining in this position for some time.

Just good to find someone who is prompt and on the ball.

Thanks again and I’ll be in touch once I have money in my account to claim the fuel etc we discussed earlier.

Kind regards,
S. Lewis

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Thanks heaps for your assistance on this problem. You guys are great to work with and have been quick to follow up any of my requests.

Regards
C. Edwards

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Alison, I would like to compliment you on your awesome customer service. Thank you for supplying the extra information that I didn’t even ask for (or realise was relevant to me). You deserve a pat on the back!
O. Ford

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Hi Chris,

Thank you for your prompt, comprehensive and professional reply – you make it so easy for us!

Thanks again,

Cheers
Paul

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To Whom It May Concern:
I’m not sure if this is the appropriate format, but I would like to pass on some positive feedback from my call earlier today to the SmartSalary Customer Service Centre.

I spoke with Pablo regarding a couple of emails I had received concerning my salary packaging arrangements and he was very helpful, provided adequate information for me to progress with my claim and was very patient and clear on what was required. Well done!
E. Turner

I would like to thank all the Health team members for excellent and friendly service.
B. Keane
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Morning Solei,

Well it’s all done – dealer happy, Smartsalary happy and customer happy.

I would like to formally thank you for your outstanding customer service tome throughout this deal. All interactions with you, and with the Smartsalary team, have been delivered on time, done right and done with a smile .

I have appreciated your regular updates on the progress of the deal, your ownership of my deal and especially you taking on board [and solving!!] a few last minute hiccups with the deal to ensure delivery will be effected on time.

This is the third vehicle I have had with Smartsalary, and after having dealt with numerous other companies over the past 10 years, it never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to deal with your company.

Well done Solei, this style of service is unfortunately few and far between in this day & age. Please feel free to pass my thanks and appreciation to the broader Smartsalary team.

Regards,
M. Phelps
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The agent I spoke to was unreal. I have just been telling a friend about him. Not only did he answer my questions he was sensible enough to try and read into other non verbal cues. If you gave awards, I would recommend him for one. You should be training Telstra call centre staff!
E. Osei

Paraplegic crosses line first in City2Surf

Published August 9, 2010 Business Update , Customer Updates Leave a Comment

One of the biggest events of the year in Sydney is the City2Surf. This year again over 80,000 runners, walkers, wheelies and merry makers made, or at least started, the 14 km plod.

SmartSalary has assembled a company City2Surf team for the past several years. We are always up for a good cause, so this year, we instead ran as part of the “ParaQuad NSW team.” ParaQuad NSW is a not-for-profit member-based association striving to empower people with spinal cord injury to achieve their potential . . . and they happen to be one of our salary packaging clients!

The ParaQuad City2Surf team nearly doubled their $10,000 fundraising target for this event. The proceeds will go toward funding rehabilitation equipment at their new accommodation facility, Ferguson Lodge. Part of Smartsalary’s $2,750 sponsorship will go towards this fantastic project.

The ParaQuad City2Surf team featured a mix of walkers, runners, joggers and inspirational wheelies . . . all sporting the ParaQuad NSW shirts with the SmartSalary logo on them!

Ron Gibson, a paraplegic from Wentworthville in Sydney, was the first person to cross the finish line in the Sydney City2Surf today. Racing in a hand cycle, Ron started just behind the seeded runners and beat all 80,000 participants to the finish line. His finish time was just outside the course record set by Australian athletics legend Steve Moneghetti in 1991.

Ron raced past the front runners after the notorious ‘Heartbreak Hill’.

“I’m over the moon at being able to compete at the City2Surf,” said Ron Gibson. “To be the first person to cross the finish line is an amazing feeling. I’ve competed in marathons and fun run’s throughout Asia, America and across Australia. It’s nice to be a part of something this big in my own backyard.”

Sound like a good idea?

Published August 4, 2010 Business Update Leave a Comment

We just love getting feedback. And you, our customers, seem to really love giving it! You give us daily feedback on our phone service. We get daily feedback on the content and clarity of our email communications, and thousands of you have provided online feedback regarding what is and isn’t working for you on our website.

This feedback has been instrumental in helping us to improve our service to you. In fact, you’ve been so generous that we want to take it the next step: tap into the collective creative imagination of our customers to really start delivering world class service.

Check out this idea generation website: www.mystarbucksidea.com. What if SmartSalary had its own such website? What if you could give us your best ideas for improving our service offering and also vote on the ideas of others? You could vote up the ones you liked the most and vote down the ones that you didn’t think were so hot. The best ideas would have the most votes, and it would be pretty clear what our priorities should be. Sound good? Would you jump in there and get us started?

We’d love to hear from you!

How much Super do you really need?

Published July 23, 2010 Super 2 Comments

The folks from Intrust Super read my blog post on superannuation back on 5 March and forwarded this link below. It is a table that looks at two things:

1) Your salary.

2) When you plan to retire.

And with this information they try to approximate how much of your salary you should be putting toward super.

http://www.intrustsuper.com.au/learning-centre/how-much-super-will-i-need.aspx

So what do you reckon . . . most of those numbers are pretty big, heh? A bit scary, but thought you’d find it interesting.

Deven

You can leave a comment here

What’s salary packaging all about?

Published July 8, 2010 Business Update Leave a Comment
Tags: Salary Packaging, Lifehouse

Sometimes it’s easy to forget just why salary packaging plays such an important part in Australian community life. We tend to see it only in terms of what it can do for us – i.e. provide an opportunity to save money – and we forget the valuable (even critical) contribution it makes to Australia’s public hospital and not-for-profit sectors.

By using the tax-free cap salary packaging concessions hospitals and not-for-profits are able to take money that would otherwise be required to fund salary and use it instead to increase service provision. “What sort of services?” you might ask – well we’ve asked The Chris O’Brien Lifehouse at RPA, one of our new packaging clients, to give you an idea . . .

About The Chris O’Brien Lifehouse at RPA

Through our vision of uncompromising care, The Chris O’Brien Lifehouse at RPA will bring hope and empowerment to help improve the lives of everyone living with cancer, no matter who they are or what type of cancer they have.

All of us will be touched by cancer in some way, whether it’s our own diagnosis or that of a family member, friend or workmate. The Chris O’Brien Lifehouse at RPA will bring together all elements of cancer research, treatment, care and support within one centre of excellence. We will offer the latest research and technology, advanced medical and complementary therapies, as well as emotional support and sanctuary in one place. We will turn new discoveries into better cancer care for our patients. We want to make things easier for people with cancer, their friends, families and carers. We aim to put people first so that those diagnosed with cancer no longer feel alone negotiating the many confusing elements in dealing with their illness.

In addition to building the new cancer centre, The Chris O’Brien Lifehouse at RPA continues to support the activities of the existing Sydney Cancer Centre. Over the next three years, whilst our new organisation and facilities are being built, the Sydney Cancer Centre at RPAH will treat several thousand patients living with cancer. These people need and deserve the best possible care and support. Donations made to The Chris O’Brien Lifehouse at RPA will help to make this possible, by providing funds for research and clinical programs. Donations are also used to help with the construction of the new facility.

Significant progress has been made on The Chris O’Brien Lifehouse at RPA. Demolition work commenced on site in early 2010 and construction of the new facility will commence later this year. The new facility will open its doors in 2013.

So while salary packaging does help you to save money, it also helps Lifehouse to provide care to Australian cancer victims. Now that’s what I call a ‘win-win’ situation.

If you want to know more about Lifehouse then I’d encourage you to have a look at their website and see some of their inspirational videos . . .

Salary packaging iPads makes the news!

Published July 1, 2010 iPads 2 Comments
Tags: iPads, Salary Packaging

The Australian’s IT section has just run an article (quoting Simon Ellis, our Senior Tax Advisor) outlining the salary packaging industry’s general response to the question of iPad packaging. The article makes clear that the industry is broadly following SmartSalary’s lead, and exercising a fair amount of caution before adding iPads to the menu of available packaging items.

As the article notes, it is only where an individual‘s employment duties involve regular tasks requiring access to an iPad (or similar machine) that the ATO will accept salary packaging. We interpret this to mean that the ATO is not going to test packaging arrangements by looking at the actual use of the machine – it’s going to test them by looking at your ordinary employment duties, and deciding whether those duties justify access to an iPad.

Simon tells me that this approach is consistent with ATO guidelines on laptops, as set out in ATO ID 2008/127.

Thus SmartSalary’s cautious approach to packaging iPads seems to have been warranted. We will, of course, continue to liaise with our employer clients in this regard but for the time being iPads are likely to stay off the menu for many of our packaging customers.

iPad and the ATO

Published June 4, 2010 iPads Leave a Comment
Tags: iPads, Salary Packaging

Will the tax man take his tablet?

iPad fever is gripping the globe, and SmartSalary customers are certainly not immune! We’re getting more and more queries about whether our customers are allowed to salary package these machines so I thought now would be a good time to offer a quick reminder of how the salary packaging rules work when it comes to devices such as tablet computers.

Since I’m not the expert in this field I have, once again, asked our Senior Tax Advisor to pull together a quick summary of the rules . . . . take it away Simon!

Thanks Deven – the first thing to note is that it doesn’t really matter whether tablet computers are considered laptops, PDAs or even mobile phones as the salary packaging concession no longer revolves around the definition of these items. Any “portable electronic device” can now potentially access the concession as long as two requirements are met:

1. The device must have been acquired for the primary purpose of use in your actual employment duties, and
2. You must not have salary packaged any similar items earlier in the relevant FBT year.

Employers who see ipads as potential work tools for their employees are starting to instruct SmartSalary to include them in their salary packaging menu, and we’ll be sending comms to those employees as this benefit comes on line. We’ve asked the ATO to clarify what devices it considers to be ‘similar’ to tablet computers for the purposes of requirement 2, but for now, while we wait to hear from the ATO, SmartSalary is taking a conservative view and packaging tablet computers as though they are laptops (i.e. we won’t allow both in the one FBT year).

So keep your eyes and ears peeled for further updates from us or your employer!

The 2010/11 Federal Budget: Salary Packaging

Published May 11, 2010 Business Update , Legislative Changes , meal entertainment Leave a Comment

Once again I am going to hand over the blog to our Senior Tax Adviser Simon Ellis, this time to give you a rundown of the 2010/11 Federal Budget:

The Australian Federal Budget was handed down at 7:30pm Tuesday May 11. This was the third budget for the Rudd Labor Government, and its first in an election year. To some extent the budget builds on the policy priorities already released as part of the Government’s formal response to the Henry Review.

From a salary packaging point of view the budget does not offer any significant changes or challenges. Unlike previous Rudd Government budgets, salary packaging rules were left untouched this year meaning that all salary packaging items will remain available.

In this regard it’s worth noting that there were a number of benefits being closely watched in the run-up to this budget (and the Henry Review) as various sources had indicated that there was some potential for change. The lack of movement around these items in this year’s budget allows us to draw a number of conclusions:

All employees

• Cars: no change to the vehicle concession and therefore salary packaging can continue as in previous years
• Superannuation: can still be salary packaged up to unchanged concessional contribution caps

Employees of public hospitals and not-for-profits

• Tax free threshold: no reduction or abolition of the tax free threshold benefit.
• Meal Entertainment: no roll back of FBT concession therefore meal entertainment still a packageable item
• Holiday Accommodation and Venue Hire: no roll back of FBT concession for entertainment facility leasing expenses therefore holiday accommodation and venue hire still packageable (where allowed by employer)

I’ve summarised the changes in the following short video presentation:

Overall the budget has not been detrimental to Australian salary packaging arrangements, nor has it required any significant change to packaging systems or procedures.

This means that SmartSalary will continue to focus on the delivery of simple, safe and valuable benefits without disruption for the foreseeable future.