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Last year - $25 gift card to local grocery store.
This year - $20 check.
What did you get?
Eeep! Totally been lurking on this page. That 10 dollar giftcard deducted from paycheck would have annoyed me to bits. IMO, better nothing at all. Is that even legal?
More than likely, it wasn't really deducted from the paycheck. Any money given to an employee is taxable income, including gift cards. Therefore these types of bonuses are added into the check, taxed, then deducted in order for the payroll taxes to be paid. My company gives us hams and turkeys to avoid this, which is called a de minis fringe benefit.
And the employer is responsible for withholding taxes, but you must report it as well, by running it through payroll in this way, it will show up on your W-2.
I have heard people complain about bonuses, that they will flip someone into a higher tax bracket for that one paycheck and they loose most of the bonus in taxes. However, it all comes out in the wash on April 15th.
The college I work for gave us $25.00. They actually increased the amount of the bonus on our checks to cover the taxes. The total "given" less the taxes, equaled $25.00.
For my full time job (not nursing, but healthcare related) I got a card with $350.00 cash! For the part time LTC, I got nothing. Funny thing is the full time job is a small company (less than 50 employees) and they gave that bonus to all full time workers, part timers got $175. Yet the huge corporation that owns my facilitygave us nothing.
A canceled shift...after I had already shown up mind you. No one bothered to call and tell me that the clients family was in town and they were going to provide care. Drove all the way down there for nothing. Then the agency had the nerve to give me attitude when I called them on New Years Eve to double check I was working on New Years day...I got "ummmm unless we call you its safe to assume you are working". I wanted to say "oh you mean like last week"? Had to bite my tongue on that one.
I got a $25 Target gift card. There was also a Christmas party which was a catered lunch and they had a drawing for some other prizes which looked like they were things donated by other local businesses (I didn't win anything). They also provided a free meal for employees that worked on Christmas day, but I didn't have to work Christmas this year, so I don't know what it was or if it was any good.
MBrickle
462 Posts
We got nothing.
However, for our birthdays we get a $50 check card, so while its not 'happy holidays' its more like 'happy you lived through another year with us.' I'll take it and look forward to the days when the economy will improve...hopefully...