(Bloomberg) – The snack in the office cup may not last long. Donald Trump is aiming at the workplace snacks in the United States.
The president’s emblematic tax law allows an old deduction to the cost of food supplied to expire employees, threatening a popular corporate benefit during the boom of Silicon Valley technology companies, which is now a symbol of modern office culture. A well -stocked pantry is now a basic item in Wall Street banks, among other places.
American companies that continue to offer snacks, coffee or lunches on site will have these benefits taxed from December 31, when the deduction will be eliminated.
The change in tax has been almost unnoticed while the extensive legislation, with nearly 1,000 pages, was in Congress, and it is not yet clear how companies will react.
A Goldman Sachs () spokesman, which offers employees a $ 30 aid for “off-time” meals and keeps a pantry with free coffee and snacks, preferred not to comment on what the company will do when the deduction is over. He made a spokesman for Meta (), another company known for the easy access of employees to Free Food and Café. Google representatives, controlled by Alphabet (), did not respond to requests for comment.
Away from Wall Street and Silicon Valley, Alaska’s fishing industry has been spared the highest costs with snacks. State fishermen have obtained an exception to maintain the support of Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, the general law, who was soon passed, with the decisive vote of Vice President Jd Vance.
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Maine’s lobster fishermen were not so lucky, as Republican Senator Susan Collins did not vote in favor of the legislation.
Restaurants can also continue to deduce the cost of employee meals, an old tradition for cooks and waiters. But this will no longer apply to most other employers, including factories and hospitals, many of which also offer free or subsidized meals or snacks to workers.
The elimination of deduction should generate an increase of $ 32 billion in additional taxes for employers by 2034, according to the Congress Taxation Committee.
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Free food is increasingly present at workplaces, with 44% of US employers offering free snacks, double the rate of a decade ago, according to research by Society for Human Resource Management.
Pantry expenses and free offices have been celebrated in recent decades by encouraging employees to work more hours, increasing morals and stimulating creative collaboration through casual meetings. Google co -founder Sergey Brin is widely quoted for guiding office designers to ensure that no employee was over 60 meters away from the food.
The 2017 Trump Tax Law has halved the employer’s deduction to food and scheduled its elimination to the end of this year, while administration sought to reduce the budgetary impact of the law, when a series of benefits would expire on December 31. Trump’s new tax legislation on July 4 reverted most tax increases scheduled for the end of the year, but maintained the deduction of office snacks, except for exceptions to Alaska and restaurants.
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Still, there I know, CEO of Zerocater Inc., a corporate catering company of San Francisco that serves more than 1,000 customers, including large banks and technology companies like Roku Inc., said he does not expect to lose business because of it.
The catering company did not lose customers in 2017, when the deduction was reduced to 50%, he said.
“It’s quite inelastic,” he said. “When you take a fiscal deduction, the cost will rise, but companies will continue to spend, as well as if you take a laptop deduction.”
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