Salary tax benefits unutilised

According to a survey, one in every four salaried professionals is not aware of the tax savings potential offered by some tax benefits that form part of their salary breakup. Among the employees that opt out of reimbursements, 56 % of them do so for higher in-hand salary, thereby not using the full potential of the tax benefits offered to them, the Zeta employee benefits survey commissioned to Nielsen India said recently.

Employee tax benefits are tax saving benefits offered by companies to salaried employees as part of their cost to company (CTC). These include reimbursements for fuel, telephone usage, leave travel allowance (LTA), gift vouchers, among others.

The survey was conducted among 194 corporates and 1,233 employees across seven cities, found telecom reimbursement as the most popular tax benefit offered by companies, followed by fuel and LTA and gadget reimbursement. However, about 62 % employees surveyed said the claim submission process is time-consuming and an average 23 minutes is spent just to submit a single bill claim.