De Minimis

[blakesiy]

Hi everyone,

May I know what de minimis is and its effect on us as employees?

My HR just approached me and talked about implementing de minimis. I wanna know the pros and cons for this.

My concern is that baba value ko cuz I will have a lesser salary declared.

[bagaholic_chewy]

Sis, those are non-taxable benefits so ok naman yan. Yun lang, di sya kasama sa computation ng bonuses or payouts na salary ang basis ng computation..

[barbillie]

No, De Minimis Benefits are non-taxable benefits which are provided on top of the employee's basic compensation. Usually de minimis benefits include: Rice Allowance for 1 year amounting to not more than 1,500 per month; clothing allowance not exceeding 5,000 per annum and many more.

[leoanmsotelo]

Strategy ito ng mga company para mas mababa ang irerelease nilang 13th month pay pagdating ng december..

[freelancer_babe]

^ Sis, I think it's not and it's a required benefit in accordance to law. Plus hindi magiging competitive ang company when they do job offers to a candidate applying to a job because many companies have this kind of benefit.

Lahat ng companies, government or private may de minimis benefit akong nakuha. Right now my employer simply pays it to me by cash (ATM), pero sa previous employers ko it was a mix of clothing allowance, rice allowance and cash bonuses.

[imaevelasquez]

^^ Disagree. I think this is not a company strategy just to lessen the 13th month pay of employees. In fact, this is an additional NON-TAXABLE benefit paid on top of the employee's basic pay in accordance to what the BIR set in their regulations. Like sis freelancer_babe mentioned, ALL companies do have this.

[bagaholic_chewy]

Bonuses are not de minimis because those are taxable, subject to the cap set by BIR.

De minimis are "small" add-ons like clothing/transpo allowance, rice, etc etc. Non-taxable.

But in a way, it is a way of "pagtitipid" for the companies in terms of distributing bonuses, etc wherein the computation is based on basic pay. Like in 2 of my previous companies, say basic pay is 60k, + monthly de minimis and other allowances of around 10k (estimate lang) - come 13th month 60k lang (less taxes). Pag me 14th month-onwards or performance bonuses na salary-based ang computation, basic pay lang din basis, which is 60k (whether x2 or x3 or xwhatever pa yan). Hindi considered sa pagcompute ng bonuses ang de minimis.