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Comment by smcl | Hacker News Reader

Do those lunch/meal vouchers exist at all in the UK? Many workers here in Czech Republic get them as a work benefit, and I suspect this is what they're referring to. It varies per employer but we get roughly one ticket per working day, worth 110kč ($4.40, or €4) and they're valid in pretty much every restaurant in the city so basically everyone goes out for lunch.

When I was in the UK they didn't have anything like this.

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Seem the UK had them quite early, but abolished them a few years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal_voucher#United_Kingdom

First I've heard of it. I doubt many companies took advantage of the scheme and issued them and I guess very few restaurants would've accepted them anyway.

As a kid in the '80s or '90s, i remember seeing signs on restaurant windows or in menus saying they accepted Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Luncheon Vouchers. I never actually saw a Luncheon Voucher though.

We have them in France too, but half is payed by the employee (taken from the salary). But we can also use them when buying groceries (not all supermarkets accept them, but a lot of them do)

Yep same deal as us, a mix of employer/employee contributions pay for them, they can be used for some items in supermarket (not for things like alcohol) and I think the employer contribution is tax exempt too

I have never heard of this before. It is fascinating to me that health care gets decoupled from employment but eating is considered an employment benefit.

I don't really object or anything, it just seems out of character.

Wouldn't it be better if the government did this directly by the same logic you'd apply to health care? Making employee meals tax deductible instead of just giving everyone a government funded food benefit sounds much more like what I'd expect in the US.

It's an interesting comparison, but I don't really think it's in the same ballpark as healthcare being provided by your employer. It's cheap (less than $90/month for mine) and it's optional - nobody's dying or going bankrupt because they don't have stravenky. It's better to think of it like the free coffee, fruit, breakfast and snacks you might have in your office. I'm sure someone's made an argument that they'd rather get a few extra bucks each month than have free coffee in the office, but not many :-)

"Making employee meals tax deductible" sounds like I have to keep receipts of what I ate and file them with my taxes to receive the benefit. But it's just that some amount of the value of these vouchers is subtracted from the subtotal used to calculate my income tax.

It's a small thing, but honestly it's a really nice benefit

Sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like you'd deduct it from personal taxes. In the US, health insurance paid by your employer is automatically deducted from your taxes so it is analogous.

The small amount almost makes it stranger, why not just give the benefit to everyone? Food seems like it would be a basic necessity comparable to healthcare, especially when you're talking about such a small amount, and it boosts the local economy just as much if it's coming from an employed person as an unemployed person.

Edit: But yes, I see your point about it being intended to be analogous to "snacks in the office" or whatever. It just seems very strange that it would be in widespread use but tied to your employer. It does sound nice. I just don't understand why it's employer run if it's a cultural expectation.

You make a good point though, in an ideal world[0] the next step might be the government stepping up to provide something like this to everyone. Remember that what the government is "paying" here (or rather waiving) is the tax on that, not the entire amount (so I dunno, $9 instead of $90). The government here isn't spectacularly wealthy though so I don't know if they'd be able to fund the full amount without raising taxes, which would be a tough sell.

[0] = my idea of an ideal world is very subjective so might not match up with everyone else's!

Yeah, I assume trying to convince people to change will run into roadblocks.

Of course the solution seems like the same as getting publicly funded healthcare in the US -- raise taxes by an amount that offsets the benefit, people with higher pay take a small loss while people who are unemployed or low income get stable help buying food.

Definitely not recommending fighting over that given the stakes, I assume unemployed people get reasonably generous government funded assistance with paying for food? As long as that's the case it just seems... odd... but not that strange, my partner works for GrubHub and gets a weekly benefit to subsidize personal meals. But the US has a totally different attitude about how employers should support employees so it doesn't really stand out here at all.

Healthcare is universal. That's just a bonus.

In France, it's considered an alternative to giving access to a (company-funded) cafeteria, companies are supposed to give one or the other.

In Spain it's a extra on top of the salary but buying groceries with them is verbotten. You can use them to buy drinks at bars though.

Missing the time when I could eat at restaurants guilt-free almost every day at lunchtime.

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