The Advocate General believes so, but will the Supreme Court agree? And does this also apply under the current regulations?
Healthy lunch
This concerns the case we described earlier in our articles Healthy lunch taxed with payroll tax and Healthy lunch. In these articles, we describe how the District Court and the Court of Appeal in The Hague successively concluded that a healthy lunch provided free of charge to employees by the employer is subject to payroll tax. The employer takes the view that a healthy lunch qualifies as a specific health and safety provision exempt from payroll tax.
Health and Safety Policy
The employer has referred the matter to the Supreme Court. The Advocate General recently delivered his opinion on the case. He is of the view that the free lunch is indeed exempt from payroll tax because the provision of these meals forms part of the employer’s health and safety policy. The fact that employees benefit from a personal saving does not alter this.
The final say, of course, rests with the Supreme Court. We are curious to see whether the Supreme Court will endorse the Advocate General’s opinion.
Current rules
With effect from 2022, the targeted exemption from payroll tax for health and safety provisions has been tightened. Only provisions that are, for the employer, directly linked to the obligations under the Working Conditions Act may still be provided with a targeted exemption from payroll tax. See also our article Exemption from health and safety provisions tightened. In our view, the free healthy meals will generally not fall within the scope of the employer’s obligations under the Working Conditions Act.