It is amusing that Google offers "free lunches". I wonder how many compensation discussions include the quip, "there is no such thing as a free lunch".
Just out of curiosity, does Google gross up salaries for tax purposes? I really think the IRS needs to crack down on companies using excessive perks as non-taxable compensation.
If Google is using the perks to justify a "lower but equivalent salary" then they should be paying taxes on the non-cash compensation. If they are not, then Google is taking advantage of a shady tax dodge.
Tax tip going way back to Learned Hand: you don't have to feel guilty about structuring your affairs to take advantage of every legitimate opportunity to decrease your tax burden.
Here's a related example: US tax law allows you to deduct 50% of meals incurred on business trips. I travel internationally for a significant portion of every year, on business trips. There are two ways to calculate how much you spend on meals: 1) Actual cost 2) An approximation method which takes a per-diem rate supplied by the US government based on your location and adds one or two wrinkles not relevant here. Either is acceptable to the IRS. I keep appropriate records of business expenses, so running both the exact cost and the approximation method was trivial. The approximation overstates my actual cost on meals by several thousand dollars -- using it as the basis for my deduction saves me about a thousand bucks. That's totally kosher.
P.S. You know those beating-the-system-is-worth-bonus-points neuroreceptors that most of us hackers have? Doing taxes gives you the opportunity for that sort of thing in spades. (Though I'd probably still suggest getting someone competent to do yours -- advice which I will be taking for myself from next year on.)
This is a good point. Personally, we often hire accountants to minimize our tax burden, yet when companies do the same thing, we like to label them as "evil" (at worst) or "shirking their duty" (at best).
My wife works at Google. We both live in San Jose, and she frequently gets the shuttle to work in the Mountain View office. For tax reasons, I'm not allowed to get the shuttle with her to or from work, so I'm pretty sure that some if not all perks are offset somehow. Various things like the holiday gift (this year it was a galaxy nexus) are also offset for tax on your payslip. Net it works out at zero to you, as Google puts extra money into your paycheque to cover the extra tax charge.
Allowing non-employees on company transportation would threaten to make furnishing the transportation to employees a taxable event. See the same link that I posted on a sibling comment about food, just search for "transportation".
Just out of curiosity, does Google gross up salaries for tax purposes? I really think the IRS needs to crack down on companies using excessive perks as non-taxable compensation.
If Google is using the perks to justify a "lower but equivalent salary" then they should be paying taxes on the non-cash compensation. If they are not, then Google is taking advantage of a shady tax dodge.