Many employers are struggling to hire and retain employees during the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting “great resignation.”

If you’re one of those employers (or about to become one), examine your use of tax-free fringe benefits. It’s one of the proven ways to help keep good employees. Such benefits are deductible by you, the employer, but tax-free to the employee.

Common examples of tax-free benefits are health insurance and paid vacation.

But there is another potential employee fringe benefit: free meals (usually, lunch). Free meals not only make your employees happy, but keep them on the premises and generally make them more productive as well.

But not all employee meals are a tax-free fringe benefit.

Employee meals qualify for tax-free treatment only if they are for the employer’s convenience. For decades, employers have been able to pass the convenience test with relative ease.

But with on-demand meal delivery available to most workplaces today, is this about to change?

Requirements for Tax-Free Employee Meals

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