You make it sound like everything is so cut and dry.
Do you really think every corporate event is a perk?
One friend of mine was just bemoaning the beginning of baseball season because he has to spend so much time at games with his bosses (tickets paid for by the company). Declining the invitation is considered rude and politically unsound.
As far as room and board go, someone staying at an "extended stay" hotel or apartment paid for by the company owes income taxes on it? It certainly isn't compensation from the employee's perspective.
Even your view on coffee is ridiculous- it is clearly a product or tool used to achieve work.
Also, how does the company just "cover the tax" as you so simply put it? Did you consider that not every employee is in the same tax bracket? What if Joe, in bracket A, drinks 4 cups of coffee a day and Jane drinks none at all?
Companies like Google already give their employees an estimated amount to cover the taxes of holiday gifts. The amount it's presumably sometimes less than the actual taxes, but employees get to deal with the difference (or they can decline the perk).
I don't see your other complaints as relevant to taxes. Just because you prefer to do less work and get less compensation doesn't make something not compensation. Using your line of argument, if you ask your boss to go golfing because you think it will l help your career, you should deduct that from your taxes.
I really cannot see the rational argument that says a migrant worker who is being paid in room and board should pay income tax but someone else doing the exact same thing while also collecting a salary and paying for an apartment in another city shouldnt be taxed on the room and board. The hotel seems completely unambiguous as compensation to me.
About coffee being an intermediate product; you might be right.
Did not know about Google's bonus for covering taxes. So they leave it to the employees to declare whatever they think the value of their holiday gifts were? I wonder if this leaves Google liable for underreported compensation like restaurants. [1]
"Just because you prefer to do less work and get less compensation doesn't make something not compensation."
I lost your train of thought. (Really, not trying to be facetious.)
"Using your line of argument, if you ask your boss to go golfing because you think it will l help your career, you should deduct that from your taxes."
Only if he's not really your friend. [2]
"The hotel seems completely unambiguous as compensation to me."
Your intuition and the law differ. The hotel is deemed an ordinary and necessary cost of doing business for the employer. Putting your employee in another place for a period of time is just the nature of the biz. For some reason, putting up a migrant worker is not?
"About coffee being an intermediate product; you might be right."
Really, I'm just trying to point out that taxes are an arcane, complex issue. Going with whatever you think is intuitive is not necessarily how they work.
Do you really think every corporate event is a perk? One friend of mine was just bemoaning the beginning of baseball season because he has to spend so much time at games with his bosses (tickets paid for by the company). Declining the invitation is considered rude and politically unsound.
As far as room and board go, someone staying at an "extended stay" hotel or apartment paid for by the company owes income taxes on it? It certainly isn't compensation from the employee's perspective.
Even your view on coffee is ridiculous- it is clearly a product or tool used to achieve work.
Also, how does the company just "cover the tax" as you so simply put it? Did you consider that not every employee is in the same tax bracket? What if Joe, in bracket A, drinks 4 cups of coffee a day and Jane drinks none at all?