Built for churches, not borrowed from hospitals.
Capped salary packaging schemes serve charities and hospitals well. Churches simply inherited them as hand-me-downs. Section 57 of the FBT Assessment Act allows a far simpler product for religious practitioners, and Vestry Benefit is built around that one exemption and nothing else.
No caps · Not reportable · Same-day setup
The same job, a different shape.
| Vestry Benefit | Capped packaging schemes | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Registered religious institutions and their religious practitioners, under s57 FBTAA | Charities, hospitals and PBIs, under capped concessions |
| Setup | Same day, self-serve, documents signed digitally in about ten minutes | Sales calls, onboarding queues and paper packs |
| Dollar caps | No cap — the s57 exemption is uncapped | Capped (e.g. $15,900 or $9,010 grossed-up, depending on employer type), tracked all year |
| Reportability | Not reportable — no reportable fringe benefits amount | RFBA reported through payroll on income statements |
| Where the money sits | In your church's own account; Vestry never holds funds | Typically in the provider's trust accounts |
| Documents | Two per minister: a salary sacrifice agreement and an eligibility declaration | Application packs and claim forms |
| Pricing | Published in full: $19 per minister per month, plus a once-off $50 setup | Quoted; often per-benefit administration fees |
Read this first
This comparison describes product shapes, not named providers. Capped packaging schemes operate under different rules for different employer types, and the figures shown are the well-known caps current at publication. Whether s57 applies to your church and your people depends on your circumstances. Your church confirms eligibility, and we recommend obtaining independent advice. Vestry does not provide tax advice.
Simple because the law is, for churches.
Section 57 of the Fringe Benefits Tax Assessment Act exempts benefits that registered religious institutions provide to their religious practitioners principally for their pastoral duties. Unlike the capped packaging schemes used by charities and hospitals, this exemption has no dollar cap and the benefits are not reportable.
Being built around one exemption is why Vestry Benefit can be self-serve, same-day and cheap to run. There is no caps engine to maintain, no reportable amounts to feed through payroll, and nothing to track against a threshold all year. And it works the same whether you have one minister or fifty.
Vestry Benefit is not for everyone.
It is only for ACNC-registered religious institutions providing benefits to their religious practitioners. A charity, school or hospital needing capped packaging needs a different product from a different provider, and Vestry doesn't do it. That narrowness is deliberate: it is what keeps Vestry Benefit simple.
Purpose-built beats hand-me-down.
Join the waitlist and be first to run exempt benefits with a product built for churches from the start.