Are Sodexo Vouchers Tax-Exempt or Should They Be Part of Salary for Tax Benefits?

Hi, Our company provides Sodexo vouchers to the employees. This is not treated as a component of salary, but an advance deduction is made from the employee's salary, and the payment is made to Sodexo. Please let me know if this will be exempted from tax or if we need to include this as a component of the salary for availing of the tax benefit.

Regards, Bobby.

Since you are recovering the entire amount of Sodexo coupons, there will not be any tax liability. Only one point: instead of treating it as a Salary Advance, you can name it as Food Recovery or Meal Coupon Recovery. In other cases, only Rs. 50/- per meal is allowed as non-taxable, and the rest of the amount is treated as taxable.

Thank you for the quick reply. I am sorry that I didn't understand that message properly. What difference does it make in renaming it as "Food Recovery" instead of "Meal Coupon Recovery"?

Also, I believe that the maximum limit is 100 per day, right? In fact, the maximum value of the voucher that we provide at our company is Rs. 2200 (Rs. 100 * 22 days). Please correct me if I am wrong.

Regards,
Bobby

Reason for showing food recovery or meal coupon recovery is that it will be easy to convince the IT officer that you are recovering the amount and hence no perk is chargeable.

As per the notification released on 18/12/2009, meal vouchers are exempted at Rs. 50/- per meal.

Hi,

Please find attached the notification herewith.

Regards,
Mahendra