Corona bonus 2022: bonus of up to 1,500 euros for many employees - but important regulation will expire soon
Created: 03/22/2022, 08:51
By: Anne Hund
Many companies have already voluntarily granted their employees a tax-free Corona bonus.
The corresponding regulation applies until March 31, 2022. © Patrick Pleul/dpa
Companies that want to give their employees a tax-free Corona bonus of up to 1,500 euros must hurry.
What does that mean for employees?
Companies that want to voluntarily give their employees a
corona bonus of up to 1,500 euros
to mitigate the consequences of the pandemic* must hurry: the corresponding regulation expires on March 31, 2022.
Tax-free corona bonus for employees: bonus must not replace wages
Is this
Corona bonus payment tax-free
or do employees have to give up some of it?
The answer is clear: the premium is tax-free up to a maximum of 1,500 euros.
However, the condition is that the bonus is paid in addition to the wages that are already owed.
In other words: The paid
premium must not replace wages
.
It doesn't matter whether the
payment
is made monthly or as a one-time payment, as the
Stuttgarter Nachrichten reported
in its online edition.
The employer can also split the tax-free bonus.
In any case, the main thing is that the total amount of 1,500 euros is not exceeded.
Voluntary Corona bonus 2022: Which regulation applies until the end of March?
Such a corona bonus of 1,500 euros
is not only tax-free, but also
social security
-free .
This applies to those special benefits that employees received between March 1, 2020 and March 31, 2022, such as the Techniker Krankenkasse informed on its website.
For example, if a company paid its employees a corona bonus of 1,000 euros in 2020 ,
a bonus of 500 euros can now be granted
until March 31, 2022
, as the German Press Agency (dpa) stated in an earlier report made clear with an example.
Anyone who
has two or more employment relationships
with a
different employer
may receive the bonus of up to 1,500 euros for each employment relationship - even within a calendar year.
The money can be paid out to full or part-time employees, as well as to mini-jobbers.
Until when is the Corona bonus tax-free?
The Lohnsteuerhilfeverein Vereinigte Lohnsteuerhilfe (VLH) gave another important hint on its website: If the
Corona bonus
is not credited to the employee's account until April 2022, the tax exemption will no longer apply, it said in an earlier statement.
According to the VLH at the time, the consequence was: "Then the bonus is subject to wage tax and social security contributions." If the bonus is paid as a benefit in kind, the employee should confirm the time of receipt in writing, the experts also advised according to the announcement.
12 euros minimum wage from October 2022
Apart from that, there will be one important change in 2022 that will affect millions of employees: from October 2022, the statutory minimum wage will be raised to 12 euros.
As far as the later pension is concerned, not all those affected benefit equally, as experts have calculated.
(ahu) *Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
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