How Fresenius Medical Care Saved its Employees’ Taxes with Paytm Food Wallet

Fresenius food wallet

The best thing about filing tax returns is the refund one gets from the Income Tax Department.

In fact, the Central Board of Direct Taxes paid Rs 1.49 trillion in refunds to taxpayers for the assessment year 2020-21 and 2021-22.

There are several tax-saving schemes that companies offer their employees. But still many salaried professionals aren’t eligible for a refund or even the ones who do, get a really low amount of refund. And all this, even when they put their money in several tax-saving investment opportunities. Since all corporations are already in the process of collecting investment proof from employees, the HR department can prepare better next year to help employees save taxes.

How Paytm Food Wallet helps save taxes

Businesses generally nudge employees to invest their earnings in tax saving schemes such as ELSS, government pension schemes, buying life insurances, and adding extra money to their provident fund component of the salary.

While these might work for some employees, they are not enough for most professionals.

In addition to these tax-saving mechanisms, corporates should also provide employees with a separate fund for their monthly food, gift, and fuel allowances. This is already being done by some businesses under their flexi benefits offering in the salary structure.

Read this: Offer Tax-Free Employee Benefits with Paytm Food Wallet

India’s income tax rules provide tax exemption to working professionals for their annual food expenses.

According to the Income Tax Act Section 17(2)(viii), businesses can offer per meal, an allowance of up to Rs 50 towards food & non-alcoholic beverages.

Paytm Food Wallet is an apt tax-saving tool businesses can offer their employees. The digital wallet that is meant only for employees’ expenditure on food products can be used at over 10 lakh stores, both online and offline.

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How Fresenius Healthcare saved its employees’ taxes

In 2019, when the Indian entity of the German healthcare company Fresenius Medical Care learned that its employees warrant better and additional measures to save up on taxes, it reached out to the Paytm for Business team. (Side note: the healthcare company is a certified employer by Great Place to Work.)

We advised them to go with the Paytm Food Wallet, in which they can add a part of the salary for employees’ monthly food expenses.

The 26-year-old healthcare company lapped up the offer and now its employees have been happily paying for their monthly food requirements through the Paytm Food Wallet.

The company spokesperson told Paytm, “Obviously, tax benefit is one of the big reasons (to use Paytm Food Wallet), but besides tax benefits, Paytm wallets are easy to manage by the employer and easy to explain to employees.”

It’s a win-win for employees and the company.

How Paytm Food Wallet works

Paytm Food Wallet is a digital wallet in which employers can transfer a part of employees’ compensation every month as their meal allowance. As a compliance measure, Paytm Food Wallet is completely compliant with Indian laws.

Once the amount is credited to employees, they can see the balance in their Paytm app under the wallet section. Employees can use the money in their wallet to pay for their food-related expenses.

Passbook

The money from the Paytm Food Wallet can be utilised to pay for ordering food online, grocery shopping (both online and offline), paying bills at restaurants, and shopping in food marts for packaged food and non-alcoholic beverages.

Paytm has partnered with millions of grocery and food stores such as Dominos, BigBasket, Reliance Fresh, Zomato, Swiggy, and many others.

3 reasons Fresenius Healthcare loved Paytm Food Wallet

While tax benefit is one of its major attractions, Paytm Food Wallet is quite beneficial for businesses as well.

  • Powerful dashboard

One thing that Fresenius Healthcare loved about Paytm Food Wallet is how easy it is to transfer the money to employees’ wallets right from the dashboard. All one has to do is enter all the employee details and the amount to be transferred along with the disbursal date in an excel sheet, and upload it on our dashboard.

Once it’s uploaded, businesses can automate the disbursal from the dashboard instantly.

Ever since using Paytm Food Wallet, Fresenius said it saves “at least three man-days a month as the Paytm dashboard gives the employer a crystal clear picture of all the transactions and the app gives the same experience to employees.”

Businesses can use the dashboard to manage payments, automate invoices, and digitally track balances.

  • Convenience

It’s incredibly convenient to roll out Paytm Food Wallet for old as well as new employees. Businesses can verify employees’ wallets before making the payout so that there is no room for error.

On the off-chance that something does go wrong, we assign every business that uses Paytm Food Wallet a dedicated relationship manager who will help sort out any problem one might come across.

Fresenius told us that whenever there is an issue, the team gets “A quick response & accurate solution” from the relationship manager. This is the reason they consider our service as “highly recommendable.”

When it comes to usage by employees, there is nothing in the market that’s as convenient as Paytm Food Wallet. Since we have millions of partners who accept payment from our food wallet, employees will never complain of not having enough stores to spend the money at.

  • Can’t be misused

Since the main aim of offering employees a food wallet is for them to pay fewer taxes, it’s imperative that they spend money only on food-related items.

That’s why Paytm Food Wallet is made in such a way that if the Paytm app is used to pay at a restaurant, cafe, or grocery store, it automatically utilises the balance from the Paytm Food Wallet. When there is no balance left in the food wallet, users can pay from their Paytm wallet. Employees can pay from their Paytm Food Wallet only for food products so that it’s not misused.

The wallet is also restricted in the sense that the amount can’t be transferred to any other account or digital wallet.

What Fresenius has to say about Paytm Food Wallet:

“Everything is available at the click of a button now. It is convenient for employees as it is acceptable and can be linked with all online food delivery apps. As an employer, we find it easy to manage Paytm sub wallets. It’s quite easy to explain its benefits to employees as well.”

Providing your employees with Paytm Food Wallet is the best thing you can do for them to help them save taxes. Get in touch with our team to learn more and get started with Paytm Food Wallet.

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