Numerous companies offer their workers what are known as “restaurant ticket”: some food vouchers that are exempt from paying personal income tax.
In some cases, these vouchers are part of what is known as salary in kind, in others, we would speak of a flexible remuneration. In this second case, the companies deduct these vouchers from the worker’s monthly salary, at his request. They do so because the expenses in this service are 100% deductible from Corporation Tax as personnel expenses. They are not paying for your meals: they are saving part of what they pay for your salary.
But the truth is that, as employees, even if we are deducted from our salary, it may come to our account ask for them – provided we were going to incur this expense anyway.
By law, this social benefit can be up to 11 euros per day for 20 days per month, which per year represents an amount of up to 2,640 euros that the company pays to the worker and that is exempt from personal income tax. Above this figure, all expenses have to be quoted.
Although in most cases this exemption is not enough to change the personal income tax bracket -and, therefore, the tax rate-, can mean significant savings which will be reflected in the income statement.
Suppose the employee spends €9 a day on food, for 20 working days for 11 months of the year. He gives us an expense of €1,980. This means a total of €396.00 exempt from personal income tax.
They are also valid for telecommuting
With the outbreak of covid-19 there were doubts about whether these benefits could also be applied to workers who, due to the health situation, were working from home. But Royal Decree – Law 35/2020, of December 22, on urgent measures to support the tourism, hospitality and commerce sectors and in tax matters modified article 42.3.a) of the Personal Income Tax Law to specify that this reduction tax will be applied regardless of whether the worker is not going to the office.
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