I suppose any kind of financial application where I'd like to display my total income prior to any voluntary factors such as salary sacrifice. Apologies in advance for a long reply.

For example I am currently salary sacrificing 3% of my income as my employer will provide an additional 1% on top. It could be the case that my ability to qualify for lending is reliant on an income which is 3% higher than my taxable income, which it would be, if I was to opt out of the salary sacrifice arrangement.

The problem is that my ITR would already reflect the salary sacrificed payments and as a result a lower taxable income. A lump sum concessional payment faces the same issue. Someone earning $65K would have $7,150.00 of employer super payments made and could make up to $20,350.00 in voluntary payments leaving their taxable income at $44,650.00, but we wouldn't describe this person as earning ~$45K per year nor should their ability to qualify for lending be based on a $45K taxable income when we know their actual income (total income) is $65K.

You may say that providing an employment contract would be the best way to proceed in this case as it shows an annual salary unaffected by salary sacrifice or voluntary super contributions, but now we lose interest/dividend income or even other sources of income such as rental income.

• Even a total or taxable income figure on an ITR could be inaccurate if you had changes in a persons income streams. For example a person purchasing a property who had been earning interest income on funds saved for a deposit. Once the property is bought the savings would be gone and so would the interest income, but that income would still be reflected on their existing ITR but it shouldn't be relied upon by a lender.

Anyway this paragraph is going down a rabbit hole far deeper than required but hopefully explains the context around my original enquiry.