Workshop: Taxable and Nontaxable Fringe Benefits

May 22, 2009

Speakers:
LaTisha O’Neal, CPP, payroll analyst, Bank of Oklahoma

Employers Struggle Over Administration of Some Benefits

The use of company cellphones by employees, a workplace perk that is gaining in popularity, is causing headaches for the IRS, while fringe benefit programs for adoption assistance and education expenses are nearing expiration dates.

Companies do not have to pay for fringe benefit programs because the money comes from the general fund, but employees must be notified of their right to the benefit and the terms of the program, such as eligibility requirements and limitations, said LaTisha O’Neal, payroll analyst at Bank of Oklahoma. O’Neal, who addressed the Taxable and Nontaxable Fringe Benefits workshop on May 22 at the 27th annual American Payroll Association Congress, held in Long Beach, Calif., said the benefit plans must be available to all employees and separate written documentation must accompany the programs to alleviate confusion.

Company cell phones, for example, when combined with business and personal use, are causing confusion for payroll departments, and some companies have run afoul of the Internal Revenue Service, O’Neal said, adding that “nobody likes this conversation” about cellphone use.

“IRS has said that cell phones are considered company property, and personal use of company property is taxable income,” O’Neal said. “If you’re not taxing on this, there is a problem and your company can be fined in an audit.”

When using a company cellphone outside of business, employees should turn in an expense report, which should be verified and signed by the worker. “If you have a company phone and you are not tracking it, I feel your pain,” she said. “You must go through every line and determine what is business or personal. You can do this, but it is tedious.”

A payroll manager attending the workshop said an employee at her company was fired because his daughter used a company cellphone and rang up $1,000 in text messages over a weekend.

The easiest solution, O’Neal said, is to remove the cellphone as a fringe benefit and have employees who use the phones for business to submit expense reports, at least until IRS come up with clear guidance. Among the proposals IRS is considering is a flat amount for cellphone use, she said.

Adoption and Educational Assistance
Two other benefit programs that are included in a number of company plans, adoption and education assistance, are well received by employees, but life of the programs may soon run out. The programs, created under the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, are to expire on Jan. 1, 2010, unless Congress agrees to extensions. Until then, the programs will likely remain as fringe benefits.

Adoption assistance, while not as popular as education assistance or dependent care of group term life insurance, is a benefit that provides an exclusion from an employee’s gross income for amounts paid or expenses incurred when adoption an eligible child. The program can be part of a more comprehensive benefit plan and it is not required to be funded. The employer is not required to apply to IRS to determine if the plan is a qualified program.

An employee may adopt a child younger than 18 or a special-needs child, but not the child of a spouse or a child delivered through surrogacy. Approved expenses include travel, lodging, meals, court costs, and attorney’s fees. “The costs have to relate directly to the adoption,” O’Neal said.

Nontaxable adoption costs are limited this year to $12,125 per successful adoption, O'Neal noted. The limit is provided on a per-adoption basis because the process can take several to more than a year. If the process is unsuccessful and the employee begins an adoption anew, the expenses from the first attempt are applied to the second.

Education assistance offered as a nontaxable benefit has its expense limits, too, and can be treated as a job-related or non-job-related benefit.

Under the Internal Revenue Code for job-related expenses, the courses must not be necessary to meet the minimum education requirements of the employee’s current job, nor can the classes qualify the worker for a promotion or transfer, O'Neal noted.

For nonjob-related expenses, an exclusion of up to $5,250 for undergraduate and graduate course reimbursements is allowed annually, and excluded expenses can include tuition, books, supplies and certain other expenses. Employers are allowed to establish successful-completion requirement for a course or a specific grade, usually an A or a B, in determining the reimbursement of the plan, O’Neal said.

O’Neal said the non-job-related programs can be offered to former employees who were terminated either voluntarily or involuntarily from the company. “In the current economy, this is especially helpful for involuntarily terminated employees,” she said.