Just FYI, this isn't my hill to die on, and I'm not THAT invested in it, I promise.
But as someone who gets literally nothing for free at work (well, we ARE back to having running water, so there's that) and knows people who get regular lunch delivery, all the free snacks they want, etc., I look at my grocery bill and see this stuff as being more than just a little recruiting perk. Getting free lunch every day would make a huge difference in my budget!
Like I said, bitter betty, party of 1.
I'm bitter that people have decent heath care benefits so I get it. I still think companies should be encouraged to provide good health care benefits, though, even if it sucks I don't get it
Well, I don't think the IRS is talking about a bowl of fruit in the break room. The Big Silicon Valley employers are proving breakfast, lunch, and dinner -- very high quality, expensive food. Benefits worth thousands and thousands of dollars.
With the law firm example that lasagna gave, or the client dinner that someone else gave, the meals are typically provided because you have to be in your office/working and don't have the option to leave your work to eat.
If Google, etc's way around being taxed here is to argue that their employees cannot leave the building and need to be onsite 12+ hours a day and are working through their meals because that is a necessary part of their job, that's a somewhat troubling development. I think that's something we *do not* want trickling down.
Agreed with the bolded . Look I am selfish I don't want to start having to deal with company paid meals being taxable fringe benefits. I would run screaming.
What IS google's reasoning behind the on-site free cafeteria? As a perk? as a recruiting tool/retention tool? or is something necessary for work like ESF mentioned (bc the employees dont have time to leave).
I remember hearing that NSA used to have a bar on site, because they did not want employees getting drunk after work and spilling secrets (they do not have this any more, something about the drunk driving issues....) but it wasn't free. so I wonder, like someone alluded to above, if these types of cafeterias are a way to keep employees isolated from their competitors, regardless of hours worked.
also, I think there is a big difference between a whopper at the end of the shift and dinner ordered in 5 nights a week, and I also think there is a difference between dinner ordered in and an onsite cafeteria that does not cost the employee anything.
Post by EllieArroway on Sept 3, 2014 10:13:22 GMT -5
This is an interesting argument. I am not sure where I stand.
My company provides pretty much everything mentioned here. Free cafeteria (Indian food! It's amazing), free gym, free parking, free laptop... But, they kind of have to provide this stuff. Do you know how hard it is to convince tech grads to move to/stay in Arkansas? We are required to have an office here so we have to find a way to convince people to move here. Those are all things that are almost necessary to be competitive in this industry these days.
Anyway, it is an interesting argument. We aren't Google, but we are competing with them for talent so a lot of what they do does end up trickling down to us.
This is an interesting argument. I am not sure where I stand.
My company provides pretty much everything mentioned here. Free cafeteria (Indian food! It's amazing), free gym, free parking, free laptop... But, they kind of have to provide this stuff. Do you know how hard it is to convince tech grads to move to/stay in Arkansas? We are required to have an office here so we have to find a way to convince people to move here. Those are all things that are almost necessary to be competitive in this industry these days.
Anyway, it is an interesting argument. We aren't Google, but we are competing with them for talent so a lot of what they do does end up trickling down to us.
This is where we are too. We compete with google, etc. for engineering talent because we are local to them, so we need to provide perks that look like theirs. This is just what tech companies do.
For my company - I think it's about 50% recruiting/retention tool, 25% owners wanting to do good, and 25% we have a lot of work to do and I'd rather not take an hour out of my day to go source food or plan for it when I am working long hours already.
I don't at all see the argument that late night law firm dinners are any different. These are busy people who work long hours, and if they can eat quickly at lunch because the food is just there, maybe that saves them an hour later in the evening. I think our owners would also argue that engineers in particular get in a flow with their work and making food easily available makes them more productive because they don't have to break out of that zone to eat.
This is an interesting argument. I am not sure where I stand.
My company provides pretty much everything mentioned here. Free cafeteria (Indian food! It's amazing), free gym, free parking, free laptop... But, they kind of have to provide this stuff. Do you know how hard it is to convince tech grads to move to/stay in Arkansas? We are required to have an office here so we have to find a way to convince people to move here. Those are all things that are almost necessary to be competitive in this industry these days.
Anyway, it is an interesting argument. We aren't Google, but we are competing with them for talent so a lot of what they do does end up trickling down to us.
This is where we are too. We compete with google, etc. for engineering talent because we are local to them, so we need to provide perks that look like theirs. This is just what tech companies do.
For my company - I think it's about 50% recruiting/retention tool, 25% owners wanting to do good, and 25% we have a lot of work to do and I'd rather not take an hour out of my day to go source food or plan for it when I am working long hours already.
I don't at all see the argument that late night law firm dinners are any different. These are busy people who work long hours, and if they can eat quickly at lunch because the food is just there, maybe that saves them an hour later in the evening. I think our owners would also argue that engineers in particular get in a flow with their work and making food easily available makes them more productive because they don't have to break out of that zone to eat.
And this is where I just come back to being a bitter betty. (At least I cop to it?)
I had the worst of both worlds at my old firm - long hours and no perks. When I worked late, I had to pay for my own Chinese delivery.
This seems like an awesome and mildly related tangent...
I’m frustrated by my office’s constant Nerf gun battles by ALISON GREEN on SEPTEMBER 3, 2014
A reader writes:
I’d love to know your take on what seems to be a ubiquitous addition to every startup: the arsenal of Nerf guns and ammo.
About two months ago, one of our C-levels invested in a large number of nerf guns and several packs of darts, and now they’re becoming flat out office supplies with new orders coming in regularly. Nerf battles break out not quite daily, but they do happen with alarming frequency.
I would get frustrated because my old desk was in the middle of Nerf Alley, though we have open plan of course, so nowhere is safe. The aforementioned C-level took a shot at me one day, nailing me in the back of the head (“Your hair [bright red] makes the perfect target”), which I made clear I didn’t appreciate. The day that I got two darts to the face (one in the jaw, one in the temple) while just sitting at my desk trying to concentrate on something was the day that I kind of lost it. Not in a yelling screaming kind of way, but in a holding up the dart saying “Really, you guys?!” kind of way. My boss says I need to grab a gun and fight back. I say no, because I don’t want to be involved in any of those shenanigans.
My new desk is more isolated, but I still get a few that find their way into my realm. I also know that once this row fills, I’ll be more in the line of fire. I’m starting to get really testy about it, which I know I shouldn’t be. It’s just so frustrating and annoying when you’re trying to concentrate on something and, even with headphones on, you’re constantly distracted by flying missiles and loud clacking of the guns themselves.
I enjoy fun in the workplace, but getting whacked with flying missiles, no matter how harmless, is not my idea of a good time, and those guns are crazy crazy loud. How can I handle this more graciously and not be the office bitch?
----
I think I’m going to have nightmares about this tonight.
I get that this would be the height of fun for some people (and apparently is for many of your coworkers), but you know, it would also be the height of fun for some people to blast opera at high volume all day but they don’t do it at work because of consideration for others.
In any case, I’d look at this from two different perspective: the immediate question of what you can do to stop getting hit in the face, and the broader question of whether this is a culture you want to work in.
On that first question, I’d start with telling people directly that you’re not into it and don’t want to shot at. As in, “Hey, shoot each other to your hearts’ content, but it’s really jarring to me to be shot at. Can you leave me out of it?”
Other possibilities:
* You could see if anyone else shares your dislike of this, and if so, consider banding together with them to either (a) speak with a louder voice (as groups can) that none of you want to be shot at, or (b) see if you can all sit together in a demilitarized zone that’s off-limits for Nerf attacks.
* You could see whether there’s a way to set up some sort of physical barrier around your workspace that will block most of it.
* Hell, you could even try putting up a white flag to signal that you’re unarmed and not to be fired upon.
But beyond that, there’s the broader question of whether this is a culture that you like and want to work in. From that perspective, it’s just like if you were working somewhere that had constant potlucks or rampant profanity or something else you disliked but which most of your coworkers liked. This is more aggressive, yes, since you’re getting hit in the face by flying objects, but it’s ultimately the same principle: If this is the culture that your company’s leadership wants, you have to decide whether you can live in that culture reasonably happily or not.
I do think the organization is probably disadvantaging itself by creating an environment where whole demographic groups are less likely to feel comfortable than others — older people, for one thing, and people with some types of disabilities, and I’d bet an awful lot of women (and start-ups already have a problem attracting women). To be clear, I’m not saying this is true of all women or all older people — I’m talking in generalities here. But those types of generalities matter when you’re running a company that will benefit from not having a homogeneous workforce (i.e., pretty much all of them).
If you have credibility and some political capital to spend, you might talk to someone in a leadership role about why that’s bad for the company if it eventually wants to grow up.
Walk me through why, though. i get it if the tax is on the employer. But its mostly (minus payroll tax) a tax on the employee. So only those who work for large companies should have to pay taxes on it? The second part (capping the benefits so those who are high earners do not get it for free I get).
I don't know. I haven't thought it through. This is why I don't work for the IRS. Maybe it would be along the lines of the first, say, $2500 in food benefits per employee are exempt, and after that, the benefit has to be reported.
Even a small company ought to be able to figure out if the food they provide to an employee exceeds that amount, and companies providing more than that can probably track it. Especially because sounds like the IRS rules don't require that food that must be eaten on premises/while working get reported, so there's no reason to count the lunches brought in during meetings, etc. So there could probably be a simple formula, i.e. take the cost of stocking your cafe/kitchen, and divide by # of employees working on site.
In my mind, there's a way to create form that would make this an easy thing for employers to report/track, but the reality is, it's the IRS, so there'd likely be a 80 page manual, so I will admit that this is more of a theoretical discussion than a practical one. As I said earlier in the thread, the paperwork probably wouldn't make this a revenue generator.
But even if it's a bad idea in practice, I think it's an important discussion to have. I'm sure when health insurance was classified as exempt-income, nobody envisioned we'd have the mess we have now. Given that increasingly, companies are getting creative with the perks, I don't think it's silly to stop and ask if those perks contribute to (or have the potential to contribute to) income tax disparities and other problems, and policies ought to be re-examined.
Agree wholeheartedly with this: Maybe it would be along the lines of the first, say, $2500 in food benefits per employee are exempt, and after that, the benefit has to be reported. That would prevent the average Joe type employee working for XYZ in Peoria from being taxed on the free slice of pizza he eats once a month and focus instead on the folks who are enjoying a free gourmet meal every day. I am against the tax at all, but a certain level of exemption makes the most sense if it has to exist at all.
I think that this is small shit to focus on, but it's what the IRS has to work with given our shitty tax code. Therefore, I'm OK with them trying to enforce the small stuff and get more taxes out of companies.
I'd prefer an overhaul and simplification of the code, but that is up to Congress, not the IRS.
But this change doesn't get more tax out of the companies, they are proposing taxing the individuals who eat the food. Either way, the corporations claim the money spent on food as a business expense.
What IS google's reasoning behind the on-site free cafeteria? As a perk? as a recruiting tool/retention tool? or is something necessary for work like ESF mentioned (bc the employees dont have time to leave).
I remember hearing that NSA used to have a bar on site, because they did not want employees getting drunk after work and spilling secrets (they do not have this any more, something about the drunk driving issues....) but it wasn't free. so I wonder, like someone alluded to above, if these types of cafeterias are a way to keep employees isolated from their competitors, regardless of hours worked.
also, I think there is a big difference between a whopper at the end of the shift and dinner ordered in 5 nights a week, and I also think there is a difference between dinner ordered in and an onsite cafeteria that does not cost the employee anything.
Google does it because it gets people to stay at work longer (especially now that they are crowding out local businesses, people could increasingly not have local take out options). They also do it because they want to make it more expensive for their competitors to draw talent away. They also think that it makes them look like a friendly, employee-friendly place to work. People who actually work there/want to work there know that it's smoke and mirrors, but general public perception of the company is that it is SO AWESOME because cafeteria and maternity leave!!!!!!!! which helps people overlook the fact that the company has more data than the NSA,crushes small start ups and potential competitors through patent trolling, and is generally a frat house of a work environment.
Difference between Google and law firm - if the law firm is providing dinner every single night, regardless of the circumstance, then yes, the two are equivalent. But I don't know if that's really that common? My understanding is that that's not the standard protocol. Rather, I was under the impression that at most places, your tab for dinner can be billed to a client if there is some pressing client need that has to be completed that day/night (and in some cases, the client may have needed to authorize the extra time). Otherwise, you are on your own. In that kind of situation, I'd equate the provision of food to getting a free lunch while attending a mandatory staff meeting, which is different than someone just hanging out for a few extra hours to make up for time spent screwing around on GBCN earlier in the week or trying to get ahead on their normal work requirements and just grabbing a burrito on the firm dime just because they can.
At my old law firm, they served dinner at 7 pm M-Th. It was a big perk of having to working late. As a staff person, so someone not making big law attorney money, I was glad that they provided dinners. It made my life so much easier since I was working when I could have been grocery shopping or cooking for myself. It sucked ass that I was there 4-5 nights a week long enough to not only take advantage of the dinners but also the cab voucher for my commute home. (If you worked past 8:30, you got $30 towards a cab ride home.)
If they wanted to start taxing me on those dinners and cab vouchers, I would have either a) looked for a new job or b) needed them to start paying me more to make up for it.
ETA: Since I wasn't in control of my schedule and had to be at work, even past my scheduled time, maybe this would fall under employer convenience?
For large and small companies alike, wouldn't it be an expense that they track and provide info on at tax time? Say if a company buys the employees lunch once a week, it's a business expense that they keep the receipts for. Would it/could it fall into the same category if it was a cafeteria?
This in theory would also apply to marketing lunch in a restaurant, the filtered water or coffee machine, soda in the fridge, snacks in the break room.
This is precisely how health insurance became an employer benefit - to compete for good employees. IMO you will soon see employer sponsored insurance benefits taxed as income.
Employer-sponsored health insurance in this country directly developed because of wage controls during World War II. You couldn't pay more than $X for a job, and since health benefits weren't taxed, employers started offering them as a replacement for wages they wanted to offer but could not. Yes that is tied to competing for "good" (or rather scarce, in this case) employees. But it was also the most efficient way for them to pay people more - a wage increase without a wage increase.
Contrast that with the free avocados in my office. It would be much more efficient for my employer to just give me money to buy my own avocados, even after taxes. Because coordinating that stuff takes staff, space, planning, etc. But if they just gave me the money, they would be losing out on the marketing benefit of having a kitchen filled with free avocados - which I shit you not, often blows the candidates I am hiring away (note, these candidates are NOT from Palo Alto). It's not about the monetary value they are giving me--it's about the marketing goodwill of "what a fun office filled with free avocados!"
I agree there's a slippery slope here, and when google starts having a pantry I can do my grocery shopping in and just take home instead of shopping, we will likely have crossed it. But when we are just talking about free food while at work, I don't think we're there. And I certainly don't think the benefit of taxing it outweighs the many, many logistical issues trying to do that would create.
Do you know how expensive avocados are?! That would be worth way more to me than free lunch - free lunch would save me about $3/day on a sandwich, yogurt and apple. Avocados are like $2/each where I live now! (Also clearly not Palo Alto, but even in SoCal, not-on-sale avocados are usually $1/each.) Think of how much one could save during Superbowl and summer cookout season!
Out of curiosity, are company cars a taxed benefits? And I know someone mentioned gym services. My work offers a credit to cover a gym membership if an employee chooses to use it, that would be taxable income, right?
Can't speak to the gym membership, but my dad has a company car to himself. The company pays the lease, the maintenance, the insurance and the gas. He is required to report his mileage, and 90% of the miles put on the car need to be for business use. If your company gives you a car with no strings attached (and I'm sure that's VERY rare), then it would be more likely to be a taxable benefit/part of compensation. In my dad's case, though, for example, he drives 50k miles per year for work. It's quite a bit easier for both him and the company to just provide the car as a means for him to do his job than for him to get reimbursed for mileage and use a personal car (which he did at his last job at a smaller company, but also driving 50k miles per year). If you use a car for work and you are not reimbursed for mileage, you can deduct the amount you use for work from your taxes as well, AFAIK. Such as in the case of independent contractors.
For large and small companies alike, wouldn't it be an expense that they track and provide info on at tax time? Say if a company buys the employees lunch once a week, it's a business expense that they keep the receipts for. Would it/could it fall into the same category if it was a cafeteria?
This in theory would also apply to marketing lunch in a restaurant, the filtered water or coffee machine, soda in the fridge, snacks in the break room.
It would be very difficult for a company to prove that buying lunch for all of their employees once per week is a business expense if it is simply a "freebie". It would be different if they conducted a lunch meeting for the entire company and provided lunch. Then it would = business expense. A once per year "thank you" lunch could also be considered a business expense. But a weekly, recurring lunch, just-because probably wouldn't fall within IRS guidelines for business expenses.
The marketing lunch in a restaurant has a clear business purpose.
I'm in payroll and this topic comes up EVERY year at multiple conferences. De minimis applies primarily when it is too burdensome for the employer to track (aka coffee/snacks/drinks in the break room). The guidelines from the IRS are not specific other than if an item can be assigned a value, and the recpient can be identified, it needs to be taxed.
Out of curiosity, are company cars a taxed benefits? And I know someone mentioned gym services. My work offers a credit to cover a gym membership if an employee chooses to use it, that would be taxable income, right?
Can't speak to the gym membership, but my dad has a company car to himself. The company pays the lease, the maintenance, the insurance and the gas. He is required to report his mileage, and 90% of the miles put on the car need to be for business use. If your company gives you a car with no strings attached (and I'm sure that's VERY rare), then it would be more likely to be a taxable benefit/part of compensation. In my dad's case, though, for example, he drives 50k miles per year for work. It's quite a bit easier for both him and the company to just provide the car as a means for him to do his job than for him to get reimbursed for mileage and use a personal car (which he did at his last job at a smaller company, but also driving 50k miles per year). If you use a car for work and you are not reimbursed for mileage, you can deduct the amount you use for work from your taxes as well, AFAIK. Such as in the case of independent contractors.