Giving Gifts and Throwing Parties Can Help Show Gratitude and Provide Tax Breaks

During this holiday seasons, your business may want to show its gratitude to employees and customers by giving them gifts or hosting holiday parties. It’s a good time to review the tax rules associated with these expenses. Are they tax deductible by your business and is the value taxable to the recipients? Employee gifts Many businesses want to show their employees appreciation during the holiday time. In general, anything of value that you transfer to an employee is included in his or her taxable income (and, therefore, subject to income and payroll taxes) and deductible by your business. But there’s an exception for non-cash gifts that constitute a “de minimis” fringe benefit. These are items small in value and given so infrequently that they are administratively impracticable to...