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Companies can offer lots of other benefits to their employees. Here are the highlights of some other commonly considered ones:

 Dependent care: Reimbursed costs for the care of kids under the age of 13 are tax-deductible to the business and a tax-free benefit for employees for up to $5,000 for a married couple filing jointly and $2,500 for others. Note that this is separate from the dependent care tax credit available on your federal tax forms.

 Long-term-care insurance: As with the dependent care benefit, a business can provide long-term-care (LTC) insurance and deduct the cost of providing it, and the benefit is tax-free to the employee. Alternatively, individuals can pay for the cost of an LTC policy themselves and deduct the cost as an itemized deduction on Schedule A of their personal income tax return.

 Group term life insurance: So long as a company has at least ten covered employees, it can deduct the cost of a provided term life policy, and the benefit is tax-free to employees for up to $50,000 of coverage.

 Educational expense reimbursement: Educational costs that are directly related to an employee’s job may be deducted if paid by the business, and the benefit is tax-free to the employee.

 Auto costs: You can write off the costs of using your car for certain business purposes, and a small business can deduct certain costs as well. Turn to Chapter 8 for the details.

 Meals: When a company provides food on-site, it can deduct all costs and provide a tax-free benefit to employees, subject to certain criteria being met. For example, if employees are working late or lack sufficient time to get their own food, the business may pay for the cost of a meal. The company can deduct snack costs and have a cafeteria that provides food at cost so long as the employees themselves pay for the actual cost of the food. Meals covered at restaurants by the business are only 50 percent deductible for tax purposes. To help the hard-hit restaurant industry struggling to recover from the COVID-19 government-mandated closures, for tax years 2021 and 2022, business meals provided by restaurants are 100 percent deductible for purchases from restaurants from which meals are available for immediate consumption.

 Travel and hotels: These expenses are deductible for the company when the travel and hotel stays are primarily for business purposes (meal expenses on such trips are 50 percent deductible). That’s not to say that you can’t enjoy yourself on a trip and do non-work, fun stuff, but the primary purpose of the trip should be business, not pleasure.

 Dues for civic organizations, small-business organizations, and trade associations: If you pay fees to join your local chamber of commerce, other civic clubs, or trade associations relevant to your business, these costs are deductible.

For more information on benefits and how they work from a tax standpoint, see IRS Publication 15-B, “Employer’s Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits.”