Payslip Checker

The most common cause is the tax-free threshold not being applied — withholding then runs thousands of dollars a year higher than it should. It can happen if you ticked the wrong box on your TFN declaration or payroll keyed it in wrongly. This checker compares your payslip against both schedules and tells you which one it matches.

Employers only withhold extra for study loans (shown as STSL on many payslips) if you told them you have a debt on your TFN declaration. Some payslips also fold it into the single tax figure rather than listing it separately. If your income is above the repayment threshold and your total withholding matches the no-debt amount, the component is probably missing — fix it with payroll or you'll get the whole year's repayment as a bill.

Yes, but pick a typical pay. The checker annualises the payslip you enter, so a period with a bonus, back pay or lots of overtime will look over-taxed (lump sums are withheld at marginal rates within one pay) and a light period will look under-taxed. For variable pay, check two or three normal payslips and look for a consistent pattern.

Not permanently. Extra withholding comes back as a refund after you lodge your return. But it's an interest-free loan to the ATO — if the cause is a wrongly recorded tax-free threshold, fixing your TFN declaration puts that money back in each pay instead.

No. The ATO calculator tells you what should be withheld going forward; it doesn't diagnose an existing payslip. We use similar rates but run the comparison in reverse — from what your payslip actually shows to the likely cause of any gap. For an official figure, use the ATO calculator.