The IRS has provided informal guidance on the federal income tax treatment to an employee of certain work-life referral services offered as an employee benefit.
What is a work-life referral program?
Employers often provide eligible employees with a work-life referral service as an employee benefit. Work-life referral services assist employees with identifying, contacting, and negotiating with life-management resources for solutions to a personal, work, or family challenge.
Work-life referral services might be offered in connection with, for example, the following:
- Identifying appropriate education, care, and medical service providers
- Choosing a child or dependent care program
- Navigating eligibility for government benefits, including Veterans Administration benefits
- Evaluating and using paid leave programs offered through an employer or a state or locality
- Locating home services professionals who specialize in adapting a home for a family member with special care needs
- Navigating the medical system, including private insurance and public programs, and utilizing available medical travel benefits
- Connecting the employee with local retirement and financial planning professionals
How are work-life referral services taxed?
A fringe benefit provided by an employer to an employee is presumed to be income to the employee unless specifically excluded from gross income under the Internal Revenue Code. One exception is for de minimis fringe benefits: a fringe benefit which, considering its value and the frequency with which it is provided, is so small that accounting for it would be unreasonable or administratively impracticable.
The IRS guidance notes that work-life referral programs may be available to a significant portion of an employer’s employees, but they are used infrequently by employees and only when an employee faces one of the particular challenges the programs are designed to address.
Accordingly, the IRS concluded that work-life referral services are excluded from gross income as a de minimis fringe benefit. Furthermore, these services are excluded from federal employment taxes, including FICA (Social Security and Medicare taxes), FUTA (federal unemployment tax), and federal income tax withholding.
Work-life referral services are often included in an employee assistance program (EAP) or otherwise bundled with other types of services offered by an employer. The IRS guidance provided here applies only to the work-life referral program itself; it does not address the tax treatment of direct or indirect payment for the life-management resources offered through an EAP or that may be bundled with a work-life referral program. Under the general rule, those other services would be presumed to be income to the employee unless specifically excluded from gross income under the Internal Revenue Code.