Priya earns 130,000 dollars in Australia. On the current rates that is about 29,788 dollars of income tax plus a 2,600 dollar Medicare levy at 2 percent.
Her first problem was the Medicare levy surcharge. Without an appropriate level of private hospital cover, a single earner above the surcharge threshold pays an extra levy on top of everything else. A basic hospital policy cost her less than the surcharge would have, so the cheaper answer was cover, not the surcharge.
Her second move was salary sacrifice into super. Contributions inside the concessional cap are taxed at 15 percent in the fund instead of her marginal rate, and she also had unused cap from earlier years available to carry forward.
Sacrificing 10,000 dollars saved roughly 3,900 dollars of income tax and levy, against 1,500 dollars of contributions tax in the fund. Net saving for the year was about 2,400 dollars, with the money still hers, just locked until preservation age.
She also claimed the work related deductions she had always ignored, kept receipts through the tax year, and lodged by 31 October rather than drifting into penalties.
The lesson: in Australia the levy rules and the super cap are where most of the routine saving sits. Both are ordinary, published and easy to get right once you look.