Filing tax return - rental reimbursement

[el_tornado]

I'm filing my tax return and inputting my details relating to the rental reimbursement scheme provided by my employer.


Basically what I did is submit my rent expense , lease etc to my employer, who then divided up my paycheque to cover my monthly rent expense.


This might be a stupid question but given this arrangement, is this the correct way to fill in the details?


Under the "Place of Residence Provided by Employer or Associated Corporation":


- In the "Rent paid by ME to landlord", I put the amount (e.g. $100,000) that I paid in rent for the tax year


- In the "Rent refunded to ME by employer or associated corporation" I put the same figure (i.e. $100,000)


That's it right?

[Crankshaft]

Yip, and obviously don't do it in the very highly unlikely event if your rent is less than 10% of your income.

[freeier]

it is tricky this year (or technically next).. you have the 100k of rebate you are suppose to get .. and if you don't include that rental amount (even if it is <10%).. how are you going to proclaim that 100k of rental cost wavier ?

[freeier]

I think the IRAS have still not indicated how they will manage the rental reimbursement scheme (the one that makes rental just 10% of your income) and the tax waiver for the first 100k of rental mentioned 1 year back. Say if one chooses not to use the reimbursement scheme because rental paid is less than 10% of gross wages, how should the filing be done ? It will be messy and complicated i am sure.

[freeier]

I think the IRAS have still not indicated how they will manage the rental reimbursement scheme (the one that makes rental just 10% of your income) and the tax waiver for the first 100k of rental mentioned 1 year back. Say if one chooses not to use the reimbursement scheme because rental paid is less than 10% of gross wages, how should the filing be done ? It will be messy and complicated i am sure.

Found this note created over the last year.. seems rental reimbursement and the 100k deduction are not to be doubled up..

https://www.ird.gov.hk/eng/tax/drd.htm

[Sith]

Found this note created over the last year.. seems rental reimbursement and the 100k deduction are not to be doubled up..

https://www.ird.gov.hk/eng/tax/drd.htm

Yep found this out just now when HR sent out reminder to apply for rental reimbursement. So people have to do the calculations to see which one is more beneficial.

[Beanieskis]

Yep found this out just now when HR sent out reminder to apply for rental reimbursement. So people have to do the calculations to see which one is more beneficial.

I've just been sent this by my HR too, I have to choose whether or not to stay in the work rental reimbursement programme.

Has anyone worked out how to work out which has the bigger benefit?

[Shiojiri Hiro]

The way I looked into it for myself:

1-is your rent over the tax year <$100k? If so, this is better
If not, should consider rental reimbursement.

2-Is the 10% RV of your 'net' income >$100k? Then rental reimbursement is better.

I stopped here as rental reimbursement was clearly better for me. There will be some marginal cases that are impacted by family sizes etc. In which case you should just run a quick test. the IRD calculator for 22/23 is very clear and easy to use:

https://www.ird.gov.hk/eng/ese/st_co...get/stcfrm.htm

[Sith]

I've just been sent this by my HR too, I have to choose whether or not to stay in the work rental reimbursement programme.

Has anyone worked out how to work out which has the bigger benefit?

I only looked at our situation and rental reimbursement is clearly the winner for us.

But what I think (without having tested it) is that if your rent -/- 10% Rental Value is bigger than 100k then rental reimbursement should be the better option.

[Flapster]

The way I looked into it for myself:

1-is your rent over the tax year <$100k? If so, this is better
If not, should consider rental reimbursement.

2-Is the 10% RV of your 'net' income >$100k? Then rental reimbursement is better.

I stopped here as rental reimbursement was clearly better for me. There will be some marginal cases that are impacted by family sizes etc. In which case you should just run a quick test. the IRD calculator for 22/23 is very clear and easy to use:

https://www.ird.gov.hk/eng/ese/st_co...get/stcfrm.htm

Sadly more complicated by my employer, as they pay bonuses based on your post-rent reduction salary. So you need to run multiple permutations to figure out the situation if they award 1 month, 2 month, 3 month or more bonuses, and then take a guess as to how the business will perform over the year.

I assume most other companies pay bonuses based on the actual monies received, not notional salary?