Extra salary benefits, tradition is still what it used to be

13 de December, 2018

The last month of the year is, par excellence, a time of traditions associated with the celebration of Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Although throughout the world the essence of the symbols associated with this season remains more or less intact, there are several specificities that distinguish the way the tradition is lived in different countries, even if they are located on the same continent.

In Finland, for example, people visit a sauna on Christmas Eve because of the cold weather. In Australia, on the other hand, due to the heat of the summer, it’s common to see bathers embodying the figure of Santa Claus on the beach. In Chile, it’s common to eat a spoonful of lentils on New Year’s Eve to attract good luck for the coming year. These different, original and, in some cases, even unusual habits and behaviors all have the same purpose: to remember and celebrate the fraternity, joy and reflection typical of this time of year.

Revising the approach to extra salary benefits

In the business world, the end of the year is also traditionally a time when the strategy and approach dedicated to Extrasalary Benefits are revisited. And if, in the case of Christmas and New Year’s Eve, originality and the unusual are gaining more and more expression, whether motivated by cultural differences or the growing consumerism of the season, in the annual analysis and decision on which Extrasalary Benefits to award to employees, the tradition continues.

One of the classics in the tradition of awarding Extrasalary Benefits is the meal ticket. Adherence to and use of meal tickets by companies and, consequently, their employees, has become widespread, and nowadays it is an increasingly common reality. It’s therefore not surprising that when defining remuneration packages, typically at the end of each year, most companies revisit meal vouchers among the various benefits on offer.

Although it is one of the classic benefits, companies, particularly Portuguese ones, are now able to offer this benefit in a different way compared to a few years ago. This difference between the past and the present is mainly due to the increasingly specific regulation of the entitlement to the meal allowance.

And while, a year ago, this specificity was mainly related to the maximum tax-free meal allowance paid through a voucher, today there are other aspects of the legal framework of the meal voucher in Portugal that uniquely distinguish it as a social benefit.

The impact of Decree-Law no. 91/2018 on the entitlement to meal allowances

In addition to the growing increase in the maximum limit of the meal allowance, granted in cash, totally exempt from tax charges (IRS and TSU), a fact that stimulates the securitization of the meal allowance and reinforces its character as a social benefit, recently (November 12), was published the decree-law no. 91/2018 transposing EU Directive 2015/2366 on Payment Services.

This decree-law applies to payment services institutions and expressly excludes meal tickets, as social vouchers, from the scope of this regulation. According to this legal framework, as it is a social benefit, the meal voucher can only be used to cover expenses related to meals that have already been prepared or foodstuffs used to prepare those meals.

This and possible future clarifications of the meal ticket legal regime reinforce it as a social benefit and give companies the continued possibility of including it, in an increasingly differentiating way, in their Extrasalary Benefits policy, without the fear of considering a classic that has been revitalized, in the already traditional annual review of that policy. See you in 2019!

With Orçamento do Estado for 2025, the maximum value of the tax-free meal voucher on a card has risen again, this time to €10.20/day.