Salaries tax saving from VHIS premiums, capped per insured person.
Estimated tax saving
—
Deductible per person
—
Total deductible
—
Your breakdown
Updates live as you typeYou save the tax, not the premium
The Voluntary Health Insurance Scheme is a government-certified type of private medical plan, and the premiums qualify for a salaries tax deduction. The single most important thing to grasp is that the deduction reduces your taxable income, so what lands back in your pocket is the tax on the premium, not the premium itself. Pay $8,000 of qualifying premium and you do not get $8,000 back. You get $8,000 multiplied by your marginal tax rate. This calculator does exactly that: it caps each insured person's premium at the deductible limit, totals the deductible amount across everyone you cover, and multiplies by the band you select to show the real cash saving.
The per-person cap and who counts
The deduction this calculator applies is capped at $8,000 of qualifying premium per insured person per year of assessment. The cap is per person, not per policy, and there is no overall ceiling on how many people you cover. You can claim for yourself and for specified relatives, which includes your spouse, children, parents, grandparents and certain siblings, provided the policy is a certified VHIS plan and you are the policyholder paying the premium. Premiums above $8,000 for any one person are still worth paying for the cover, but the slice above the cap brings no extra deduction. Confirm the current cap and the list of eligible relatives with the Inland Revenue Department, since these can be revised.
Two people covered, top marginal band
Suppose you pay $9,000 of VHIS premium for each of two insured people, and your top dollar of income falls in the 17 percent band. Each person's deductible premium is capped at $8,000, so the total deduction is $16,000. At a 17 percent marginal rate, using the rates this calculator applies, the tax saving is $2,720. The extra $1,000 paid above the cap for each person buys cover but adds nothing to the deduction.
The chart shows how the same $16,000 deduction returns very different cash at different marginal bands. The saving is small at the bottom band and largest at the top.
Which marginal band to choose
The band in the tool is the rate on your top dollar of income under the progressive scale, which runs 2, 6, 10, 14 and 17 percent across successive $50,000 slices of net chargeable income. A deduction peels income off that top dollar first, so you save at your highest band, not your average rate. The 17 percent option is labelled as the top band: that is the highest progressive marginal rate, and it is also where the deduction is worth most. Note that this 17 percent is the top progressive band, not the separate standard rate, which the calculator's underlying data sets lower at 15 percent. If you are unsure which band applies, your salaries tax assessment shows your net chargeable income, and anything above $200,000 of it sits in the 17 percent band.
A mistake worth avoiding
The deduction is only useful if you actually pay salaries tax. Someone whose income is fully covered by the basic allowance of $132,000 and other allowances has no taxable income to reduce, so the VHIS deduction saves them nothing, however large the premium. In that situation the value of a VHIS plan is purely the medical cover, which can still be the right call. Remember too that VHIS sits in a small family of deductible insurance products: qualifying deferred annuity premiums and tax-deductible voluntary MPF contributions share a separate combined cap, administered with the MPFA, and an ordinary life or travel policy is not deductible at all. Do not assume every insurance premium reduces your tax.
Can my spouse and I both claim for the same person?
No. A given insured person's premium can only be deducted once. If you both pay toward one parent's VHIS plan, you agree between you who claims that person, and the $8,000 cap applies to that single claim. Spreading different relatives between two earners can still make sense to use each person's band efficiently.
Is the saving the same every year?
It recurs as long as you keep paying qualifying premiums and have taxable income, but the cash value moves with your marginal band. A pay rise that lifts you into a higher band increases the saving, while the cap and rates can also change at a Budget, so re-check with the IRD each year.
Does the deduction apply to a group medical plan from my employer?
The VHIS deduction is for qualifying certified VHIS policies that you hold and pay for. A medical benefit provided free by your employer is not a premium you paid, so it does not generate a personal deduction. Only premiums you actually bear on a certified plan count.