The Small Benefit Scheme (SBS) is a statutory tax relief scheme offered by Irish Revenue that allows employers to provide a tax exempt benefit to Irish employees of up to €500 per year.
As an employer, the Scheme allows you to give certain types of rewards to your employees that are NOT subject to any Benefit-In-Kind (BIK) tax for the employee, or employer tax (Employer PRSI) for the company.
Even though one of the key regulations of the Small Benefit Scheme is that it can only be applied to one reward per employee per year, it is possible for companies to extend the Scheme throughout the year in conjunction with a qualifying points system. This means that you can award points to your employees throughout the year, and allow them to cash-in their points at the end of the year up to maximum of €500 in non cash rewards.
The advantage of course is that instead of a giving a one-off reward for retrospective performance, you can instead run an ongoing, proactive incentive & reward programme throughout the year.
This could be a Sales Incentive, Performance Improvement Programme, KPI Incentive, Peer-Recognition, On-the Spot Rewards, Employee of the Month, or Service Awards.
As well as enjoying the same tax-free status, ongoing Small Benefit programmes can have the advantage of being more engaging and impactful than a single annual reward.
Allgo’s Reward Hub platform allows companies to run ongoing employee reward programmes, and is fully approved by Revenue for the Small Benefit Scheme.
How it Works
The typical ongoing programme works like this-
Guide to Small Benefit Scheme 2019
Our 2019 Expert Guide to the Irish Revenue’s tax-free employee reward scheme gives you expert info, insights and case studies for getting the most out of the scheme. Download it for free today by clicking the Download Now.