Instructions are ready for employers who intend to provide their employees with dependent children with sums or reimbursements as benefits. Circular no. 23/E today provides clarifications on the new corporate welfare regulations, following the innovations introduced by the “Labour Decree” which raised the limit within which it is possible to recognize tax-free goods and services for employees. The same decree (Legislative Decree no. 48/2023) also included the sums paid or reimbursed to workers for the payment of domestic electricity, water and gas utilities among the “bonuses” that do not contribute to forming employee income. +
The audience of beneficiaries
For employees with fiscally dependent children, therefore, benefits of up to 3 thousand euros received from the employer are exempt from Irpef, as well as from the substitute tax on productivity bonuses. The benefits also include sums paid or reimbursed for the payment of domestic utilities for the integrated water service, electricity and natural gas. The circular specifies that the relief applies in full to each parent, holder of income from employment and/or similar, even in the presence of only one child, provided that the child is fiscally dependent on both, and recalls that, for the Tax Office, children with an income not exceeding 2,840.51 euros (before deductible expenses) are considered dependent. Since the benefit is due for 2023, this income limit – which rises to 4 thousand euros for children up to 24 years old – must be verified on 31 December this year. The document also clarifies that the new relief is available to both parents even if they agree to attribute the deduction for dependent children in full to the parent who, of the two, has the higher income.
The rules for the facilitation
To access the benefit, the worker must declare to his employer that he is entitled to it, indicating the tax code of the only child or dependent children. Since there is no specific form for this declaration, it can be made according to methods agreed between the two parties. Naturally, if the conditions for the benefit cease to exist – for example in the event that, during the year, a child is no longer fiscally dependent – the employee is required to promptly notify the employer. The latter will then recover the benefit not due in subsequent pay periods and, in any case, within the deadlines for the adjustment operations.