The current best info still appears to be the Westpac-ASFA biannual retirement lifestayle reports.

Actually, there haven’t been any changes to the law recently that affect the ability of employees to claim credit card payments under the tax-free benefits cap (available to public hospitals and some PBIs).

Are you packaging through SmartSalary? If so, I can confirm that the credit card reimbursement process you describe in your post continues to be acceptable. If not, then it would be best to contact your provider and have them confirm this for you.

Unfortunately those articles you have identified were not relevant to salary packaging as the ATO was commenting on a different legislative test (i.e. for the education refund the test is “similar items” whereas the salary packaging test is “substantially identical items”).

Nonetheless the ATO has responded informally to our agenda item and indicated that it will apply the following interpretation:

Assets are substantially identical if they are the same in most respects even though there may be some minor or incidental differences. Factors that need to be considered include colour, shape, function, texture, composition, operation, brand and design. The weighting of each factor may vary from asset to asset.

I think, from that definition, it is reasonable to assume that the ATO will consider tablet computers to be different to laptops for salary packaging purposes.

Is there any update from Smart Salary on the classification or status of salary sacrificing an iPad for work purposes?

I think the important aspect here is understanding what an iPad does and does not offer. The input, connectivity, applications, form and function equates to what many PDA’s have offered for years – albeit in a much improved human interface implementation. Certainly it can support some of what a notebook computer can do, but by no means is it a replacement for the heavy computing power and interconnectivity notebooks offer. It does support contemporary media format replay, some limited recording, but not media content creation.

In my workplace we see the iPad offering electronic note taking, diary, document reading and exchange, e-mail/messaging, through to field process guidance and recording, and learning support.

I hope that your negotiations with ATO support the iPad being recognised as a PDA type tool and not be influenced by the media IT hype that it is some notebook/PC replacement.

An iPad will be much less efficient at these tasks as it doesn’t have a keyboard. It will however become indispensable as a mobile information and application source. You can have journals, textbooks and logbooks at the touch of a button. I plan on having all of my patient information leaflets on one so that I can give it to the patients to read during consent. You can also use the touch screen interface for patients to fill in outcome scores with ease. This has been the role of a PDA or paper but better and more usable. An iPad would not replace a laptop but complement it. I certainly hope that we can package both.