Using Nursery Vouchers to Pay Less Tax in Spain
- By Maxine --
- 15 Jan 2014 --
- comments are disable
Luncheon vouchers have been around for a long time, in Spain the main ones being Ticket Restaurant or Restaurante Pass. However, what’s not well known is that there also exists another voucher option that you can use to pay for your children’s nursery fees.
IMPORTANT UPDATE
This article was originally posted in 2012, however on 22 Dec 2013 there was an important change in legislation which caught many people by surprise. Now the majority of employee perks, such as nursery or lunch vouchers, will be subject to the corresponding Social Security payment both by employees and companies. As an example, a 9€ daily lunch voucher will now mean a additional Social Security payment of 2.70€ by the employer and 0.60€ by the employee.
How The Voucher System Works
The companies that offer lunch vouchers are the same ones that offer the nursery vouchers: Ticket Guardería and Guardería e-Pass. These vouchers can be paid by the company you work with under the following conditions:
- must be nominative (name of the worker, not spouse/partner)
- have to be numbered
- cannot be transferred to another person nor exchanged for money
Advantages for the employee:
- Amount received in vouchers is not taxed, unlike wages, although it is subject to Social Security contributions.
- No need to change nursery, just request that the nursery your child attends joins the system
According to the information on the website for Ticket Guardería, the typical yearly saving (before the new legislation) for a company would be 170€ and for the employee 145€. Of course, savings in tax depends on each person’s income and is limited to 30% of annual salary. Additionally in some areas in Spain the amount cannot exceed 1000€ per year (Alava, Vizcaya and Guipuzcoa).
The vouchers can either be supplied in paper, which are handed over to the nursery each month, or there’s also an online paperless system.
On the company websites we’ve seen that they also offer a similar system for employees that use public transport, again with savings for both employer and employees. The only thing that we can’t find is the actual cost for the companies involved (because nothing is free!). However, we think that if there are a few people interested where you work, why not have a chat with the Human Resources Department and start dropping a few hints – in times of recession any saving can help.
