硅谷表示對公司免費員工餐收稅是個餿主意

For years, many tech workers in Silicon Valley have enjoyed free meals — one of several cushy perks offered the likes of Google, Facebook, and countless startups. But complimentary grub could become a thing of the past if the Internal Revenue Service has its way.

多年來，許多硅谷科技公司的員工一直享用免費員工餐。這是谷歌（Google）、Facebook和無數初創公司爲員工提供的福利之一。然而如果美國國稅局（Internal Revenue Service）落實了收稅意向，這些免費食品就將成爲過去了。

A report on Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal revealed the IRS is pushing to tax employees for their free meals. Companies would have to add in the value of free food when calculating employee tax withholding.

《華爾街日報》（Wall Street Journal ）本週二報道稱，美國國稅局正準備就免費員工餐向員工徵稅。在計算員工的預扣稅款時，公司必須加入免費食物的價值。

News of a potential tax on free meals has many worried in Silicon Valley, where all-you-can eat buffets are a basic recruiting tool. They’re also a subtle way to get employees to work longer hours by giving them no reason for them to leave the office except to sleep.

這一消息讓硅谷許多公司感到擔憂，因爲“管飽吃”的員工自助餐是他們招聘時開出的基本條件之一。提供員工餐也是一種巧妙的手段，讓員工除了睡覺以外沒有理由離開辦公室，從而工作更長時間。

“Having food available or catered in is kind of expected of most tech firms, so this is a bit of a concern,” admits Steve Sarner, VP of Marketing, at the social networking site Tagged, where employees get at least one free meal a week cooked up by nearby restaurants in San Francisco’s Financial District.

社交網站Tagged公司營銷副總裁史蒂夫o薩爾納承認：“提供食物是人們對大多數科技公司的正常預期，因此徵稅問題引發了一些關注。”在這家公司，員工每週至少會享用一次由舊金山金融區附近的餐廳烹製的免費餐。

Nathan Grady, a front-end engineer at Weebly, a service that lets users build web sites with custom software tools, called the idea of taxing free food awkward. The practice is a social catalyst that makes it easy for a company’s staff to talk to one another, he said. Weebly makes that easy enough by serving free catered lunch daily.

Weebly是一家讓用戶利用定製軟件工具創建網站的服務提供商，該公司的前端工程師南森o格雷迪認爲，對免費員工餐徵稅的想法“令人尷尬”。他表示，提供員工餐可以促進社交，公司員工在用餐時可以輕鬆地交談。Weebly每天都提供免費午餐，從而創造這種交流的機會。

“You start doing that, well then, do you start taxing free coffee as well?” Grady said. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

格雷迪表示：“最開始是向免費員工餐徵稅，然後呢，是不是還要向免費咖啡徵稅？這根本沒有道理。”

Google, which popularized the free Silicon Valley buffet, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Facebook, which followed in Google’s footsteps by offering its employees free food, declined to comment.

引領硅谷免費自助餐潮流的谷歌公司並未立刻發表對此事的看法。在提供免費食物方面追隨谷歌腳步的Facebook也拒絕發表評論。

The idea of a food tax rankles Matt MacInnis, CEO of the digital publishing startup Inkling. His company has served its employees free lunches for nearly four years via the catering business Ryan Scott 2 Go. ZeroCater, another caterer, was hired last year to serve dinner. MacInnis argued that free meals in the tech industry are a lot like standard benefits such as employers matching 401k contributions by their workers.

Inkling數字出版公司首席執行官馬特o麥金尼斯對徵收食物稅的想法非常不滿。他的公司通過餐飲公司Ryan Scott 2 Go，已經向員工提供了近4年的免費午餐。去年，公司還聘請另一家餐飲公司ZeroCater提供晚餐。麥金尼斯認爲，科技業提供免費員工餐就像是僱主給員工提供401K企業養老保險一樣，屬於常規福利。

Companies like Google GOOG 1.00% , Facebook FB 2.49% , and Apple AAPL 0.78% can easily afford to pay employees more to cover any additional taxes for free meals, he said. Therefore, their recruiting wouldn’t suffer. But start-ups, which feel compelled to offer free laundry, yoga classes, and free food to compete for top talent, would be put at a big disadvantage, he said. In Inkling’s case, MacInnis says he would need to increase employee’s annual salaries by more than $5,000 to cover any extra food taxes.

像谷歌、Facebook和蘋果（Apple）這樣的公司可以輕鬆地給員工加薪，抵消免費員工餐導致的額外稅費。但初創公司通常都不得不提供免費洗衣、瑜伽課程和免費食物，以此爭取頂級人才，這個政策會讓它們處於極爲不利的情況。麥金尼斯表示，在Inkling公司，他需要將員工的年薪提高5,000美元以上，才能抵消額外食物稅對員工收入的影響。

“It seems there would be pretty terrible, unintended consequences,” MacInnis said.

麥金尼斯說：“看起來這將導致出人意料的可怕後果。”