On 30 January 2024, Stefania Raviele will participate in the webinar organised by Consono “Corporate wellbeing and industrial relations: the strategic advantage of investment”.
The webinar will focus on how a wellbeing strategy can not only improve organisational dynamics and business productivity, but also contribute to the wage containment in the company budget.
The webinar will explore the initiatives companies can implement to support their employees in achieving financial well-being and agree sustainable employment contracts with unions.
The panel will offer an in-depth perspective on the use of corporate welfare and wellbeing tools, providing practical insights and solutions to best achieve corporate sustainability.
Click on this link to find out how to participate.
The latest frontier of company benefits comes from the United States, where, according to an analysis conducted by the Wall Street Journal, it is increasingly common for employers to offer, as a means of attracting talent, so-called “fertility benefits”, i.e. a series of services to cover the expenses necessary for clinical treatments for people suffering from infertility.
This is a significant issue considering that, according to the World Health Organisation, infertility affects one in six people worldwide and that, very often, the costs of accessing such health services are extremely high.
This type of benefit does not yet appear to have arrived in Italy. The explanation probably also lies in the particularly restrictive legislation on assisted procreation in force in Italy.
From an employment law point of view, in Italy the tool available to companies to offer employees support services for health benefits is corporate welfare. This enables companies to offer employees forms of supplementary health insurance, for example, that can be provided in the form of flexible benefits, thus guaranteeing a form of additional protection and assistance compared to the Italian National Health Service.
For employees, joining these forms of company healthcare gives rise to the right to various healthcare services in affiliated centres or hospitals.
It is important to remember that from a tax and social security contributions point of view, health care contributions paid by the employer do not constitute, within certain thresholds, income from employment with consequent economic benefits for both the employer and the worker.
Therefore as fertilitybenefits fall within the scope of healthcare services they could be included as a tax free benefit within the supplementary healthcare services or offered by the company as part of a company welfare plan, within the limits set by the specific regulation or company union agreement.
Other related insights:
Incentive takes hold in the United States, while still rare in Italy. Quacquarelli (Bicocca): “Certain topics remain taboo here”
MILAN – Employment is growing, unemployment benefit claimants are falling, and wages are above inflation. The US employment market is experiencing a golden age and this pushes companies to look for new ways to recruit staff. After the pandemic, which prompted many people to seek a greater balance between personal and work life, the salary component is only one of the levers available.
Emerging trends in corporate welfare
An analysis carried out by the Wall Street Journal reports that among the new trends is to offer to cover the cost of fertility-related treatments. This is a commitment that also has a “systemic” value, considering that in the States, as in the rest of the West, the progressive aging of the population puts the stability of public finances at risk, as it involves greater expenditure on pensions against a lower proportion of people of working age.
The benefits are not an absolute novelty, but if in the past they were mainly offered to management level. Today they are also often offered to with lower-paid employees such as cashiers, warehouse workers and bartenders, as well as part-time employees.
Finding the balance between costs and returns
For several years now, Apple and Facebook have covered employees’ costs for egg freezing. According to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, 25% of employers in the US currently offer IVF coverage compared to 20% in 2019, before the pandemic. These include well-known companies such as Amazon, Target and Starbucks.
However, some companies are beginning to question the wisdom of this strategy, considering that it involves outlays that are anything but negligible. Thus, for example, Tractor Supply (an American retail chain that sells products for the home, agriculture and lawn and garden maintenance) has decided to grant the benefit to those who have been with the company for at least one year.
Italian experiences and the taboo
“From a tax and social security contributions point of view, health care contributions paid by the employer do not constitute, within certain thresholds, income from employment with consequent economic benefit for both the employer and the worker,” explains Vittorio De Luca, managing partner of the law firm De Luca & Partners .
Continue reading the full version published in La Repubblica.
During this episode Stefania Raviele delved into the issues of inclusion and gender equality within corporate organizations and how they are required to take into account numerous factors such as ESG, LGBTQ+, D&I, Welfare, Gender Equality, and Parenting Support.
You can watch the full interview on Rinascita Digitale.
Examination of the relationship between contractual and corporate welfare (where works and services are not subject to contributions and taxation) and the social security contribution obligation compliance document (DURC) which is indispensable for accessing the regulatory and contributory benefits provided for by the labour and social legislation
Contractual welfare is the worker protection and welfare system, supplementary to that provided by the state, which originates from collective bargaining at different levels: national, local, or corporate.
Traditionally, contractual welfare was distinguished from employer or corporate welfare, considered as a set of services and benefits provided to workers on the employer’s unilateral and voluntary initiative, without any negotiation or agreement with workers’ trade union.
Law no. 208 of 28 December 2015, (Stability Law for 2016) overcame the identification of corporate welfare with the features of unilaterality and voluntariness, technically and culturally modifying the previous approach. The previous regulations excluded from employee income welfare works and services only if they were provided on the employer’s voluntary and unilateral initiative.
It was decided that the “use of works and services recognised by the employer voluntarily or under contractual provisions or company regulations does not contribute to the formation of employment income.”
If in the previous wording of Art. 51 of the TUIR (Consolidated Income Tax Law) (Presidential Decree no. 917/1986) the provision application was limited to disbursements made “voluntarily” by the employer (therefore tax authorities and tax case law excluded collective bargaining disbursements), the 2016 Stability Law overturned this previous approach, introducing company bargaining as the privileged tool used to implement welfare policies.
However, there is no legal definition of contractual or corporate welfare, and the doctrine describes it as the set of benefits and services provided by the company to its employees to improve their private and working life. These include family support, study, parenting, health protection, time-related and commercial benefits.
Law no. 208 of 28 December 2015 (Stability Law for 2016) introduced important changes on the detaxation of bonuses for objectives deriving from local or corporate collective agreements, and on goods and services (benefits) provided by employers to employees, i.e., disbursements comprising contractual and corporate welfare, which is exempt from contributions and taxes.
Art. 51, paragraph 2, letter f), of the TUIR establishes that the following do not contribute to forming employment income: “the use of works and services recognised by the employer voluntarily or under contractual provisions or company agreements or regulations, offered to employees or categories of employees and family members specified in Article 12, for the purposes referred to in paragraph 1, of Article 100.”
Art. 1, paragraph 162, of Law no. 232/2016, specified that the provisions of Article 51, paragraph 2, letter f) of the TUIR must be interpreted in the sense that they apply to works and services recognised by the employer, in the private or public sector, under a national collective labour agreement, multi-industry or local collective agreements.
The Social security contribution obligation compliance document (DURC) certifies compliance with company payments of social security, welfare contributions, and insurance premiums.
Based on a single electronic request, the authorised party can simultaneously verify the compliance of an economic operator with contribution obligations to INPS, INAIL, and the Construction Industry Fund (only for companies belonging to the construction sector or applying the relevant National Collective Labour Agreement).
Originally created as a unified certification for contribution and insurance payment compliance by construction companies contracted for public works, the DURC’s scope of application was gradually broadened, until reaching the current situation where the DURC is compulsory regardless of contribution classification.
There are two separate documents for company contribution payment compliance: the “Online DURC”, used by external parties to verify the economic operator’s contribution compliance (Ministerial Decree 30 January 2015; INPS Circular no. 126/2015; INPS messages no. 4580/2015), and the “Internal DURC”, which is indispensable to access the regulatory and contributory benefits under labour and social legislation.
Under Art. 1, paragraph 1175, Law no. 296/2006, access to the regulatory and contributory benefits under labour and social legislation is subject to the possession of the DURC by employers.
Art. 1, paragraph 1175, Law no. 296/2006 states that from 1 July 2007, the regulatory and contributory benefits under labour and social legislation are subject to the possession of the DURC by employers, “ without prejudice to other legal obligations and compliance with national, regional, local or company collective agreements, stipulated by the employers’ and employees’ trade unions that are comparatively more representative at a national level.”
Continue reading the full version published in Modulo24 Contenzioso Lavoro (Form24 Labour Litigation of Il Sole 24 ore.