Читать книгу Small Business Taxes For Dummies - Eric Tyson - Страница 63

Who doesn’t like a free lunch?

Well, in this section, I don’t actually tell you how to get a free lunch or two, but I do explain how small businesses can offer their employees valuable benefits. These “perks” or “fringe benefits” are usually tax-deductible expenses for the business and often tax-free to the employees. Another plus for the company is that — unlike wages paid to an employee, which cost the business in Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment taxes — benefits can save the company on these taxes.

A small-business owner — or any business owner, for that matter — should never provide a particular employee benefit just because it’s tax-deductible. Keep in mind that you have to spend money to qualify for a deduction, and the value of that deduction only recoups part of the outlay the company makes to provide a particular benefit. Providing benefits to your employees can and should be motivated by these factors:

 Offering an industry-competitive compensation package: You compete for employees with other companies in your line of work. If most competitors offer health insurance and a retirement savings plan, you need to know that as you design your benefit package. From a cost standpoint, you need to track and manage the total cost of the compensation package, which includes benefits provided to employees.

 Providing valued benefits: Another reason to consider particular benefits for your employees is that they’ll value them. What benefits your employees value in turn depends on your workforce’s makeup. If your employees are primarily older people nearing retirement, they’ll value a different mix of benefits, for example, than employees who are younger and single or employees with dependent children.

In this section, I discuss the most common benefits small businesses tend to offer and provide pertinent background for each. I also discuss what tax-deductible benefits are uniquely offered to corporations only.