Did you know that income taxes are gobbling nearly half of our recognition budget?”

“At first, we thought we could award gift cards to Walmart, Sears, and other stores without bothering to tax them … but we learned how wrong we were after that painful audit."

Our employees were furious that they have to pay income tax now on their awards…some of them even refused their gift cards rather than be taxed. That’s why we switched to cash. From there, things only got worse. Now our cash award program has become “expected” and part of compensation.  We’ve concluded it yields us zero employee behavior change….are we really getting anything out of this? Isn’t there a legal way to reward our employees income tax free?”

50 years of research by Bob Nelson, Herzberg, Maslow, and other psychologists proves without a doubt that your employees’ number one Job Satisfaction request isn’t more money, it’s more RECOGNITION.  Our tax free STAR PERKS Program helps you and your management team reward star performers easily, consistently, and quickly,

This program has helped many firms reduce income tax losses by 42% or more! Since each solution is custom built for you, the easiest way to start is a free 10 minute needs assessment.

Our legally income tax free programs help you place 100% of your budget in the hands of your employees and will reward them with a gift they’ll remember for years to come. New research shows that while 82% of all employees say “give me the cash” in favor of receiving a non cash tangible reward gift, those same employees will work 2.5 times harder for a non cash award than a cash or gift card award.

The IRS Says Gift Cards are Taxable

Here’s the proof that gift certificates and debit cards are TAXABLE as income.
Note the Recent CNN Story Below…

Colonial Life was audited and fined back taxes and penalties and interest on Walmart Gift Cards they awarded . The IRS now takes the position these are taxable as income. The original $30,000 budget that Colonial Life invested became an administrative nightmare as the company was fined another $60,000 in back interest, penalties, and fines.

It is in part due to this danger, that Toyota spends $1,000,000 on gift certificates per year, and pays $920,000 in income taxes so the $1,000,000 will not have to be taxed to the employees….can you believe $920,000 lost to taxes?

You Call This a Bonus?

Some bonus.

Hourly workers at Tower Automotive received $15 gift cards redeemable at Meijer grocery-retail stores before Thanksgiving. Then the automotive supplier decided the cards were “same as cash” gifts subject to federal and state income taxes totaling 36.75 percent.

That means the “gift” will take $5.51 out of the workers’ next paychecks.

“It’s got a lot of people ticked off,” said Donald McKee of Kingsley, a welding technician. “This is the lowest they’ve gone yet to give us something and then take it back.”

United Auto Workers Local 5110, which represents about 300 hourly workers, has filed a contract grievance over the matter. Some workers also have returned the gift cards rather than pay the tax.