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Microsoft Businesses IT Technology

Microsoft Pays Staff $1,500 for Work in Pandemic (bbc.com) 42

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Microsoft is to give its non-executive staff a $1,500 bonus for their work during the pandemic. From a report: The company told the BBC it was a symbol of appreciation "during a uniquely challenging year." It added: "We are proud to recognise our employees with a one-time monetary gift." In the first quarter of 2021 Microsoft's profits rose 38% on the same period last year. The Verge reported that employees below vice-president level who joined no later than 31 March 2021 would receive the payment, including part-time workers. The big tech firms have done well during the pandemic and Microsoft is not the only firm to have made bonus payments to staff. In March 2020, Facebook gave employees a $1,000 bonus to help them with increased expenses caused by the pandemic, such as those associated with setting up a home office. Google made a similar $1,000 payment in May 2020. In December, Amazon gave front-line employees a $300 dollar bonus with part-time workers receiving $150.
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Microsoft Pays Staff $1,500 for Work in Pandemic More

Microsoft Pays Staff $1,500 for Work in Pandemic

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  • Gift or salary. (Score:3)

    by Ostracus ( 1354233 ) on Friday July 09, 2021 @04:48PM (#61567409) Journal

    Wonder how much was taxable?

    • Re:Gift or salary. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Strider- ( 39683 ) on Friday July 09, 2021 @04:56PM (#61567441)

      It'll be taxable. I'm a field Engineer for my employer, right now we get an additional $75/day for travel during the pandemic. That's taxable too, but between that, the overtime, and the per diem, I do alright for myself.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: Gift or salary. (Score:5, Informative)

        by Synonymous Cowered ( 6159202 ) on Friday July 09, 2021 @05:19PM (#61567515)

        Third possibility: you don't quite know what you are talking about and thus asked a pointless question.

        https://blog.wagepoint.com/all... [wagepoint.com]

        "In the U.S., a cash gift, gift card or gift certificate (no matter how large or small the amount) will always be taxable."

        In other words, a corporation giving a tax free $1500 isn't even in the realm of possibility (and you should be able to imagine why). The IRS wants its cut.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by larwe ( 858929 )
          Of course. However not infrequently the company will pay the tax; i.e. they will use the current year tax tables and the employee's comp rate and compute a "gift" amount such that the employee _nets_ $1500. That's messy of course, and for many people it won't finally wind up netting out that way because of tax situations the company doesn't know about, but the practice is not uncommon.

          • Man that is not how anything I have ever heard of works. If I want to give you and several workers ten dollars after taxes, I will not first hand out 10 dollars then wait for everyone to prove what percent they were taxed the following year (you donâ(TM)t know until the year is over- the ten dollars you get might be taxed less than the guy who makes the same salary but has another source of income).

            Instead I would pick a larger number- like 15- and pay that.

            And that is what Micorsoft has done.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by larwe ( 858929 )
              I assume that it's a function built into payroll software, because I've been at large (10K+ employee) companies that did this routinely and this sure would not have happened if it was in any way manual. It must be something like "add X to the _net_ paycheck, and back in the relevant fed/state/local taxes on top so the withholding is right - for that one paycheck". But as I said, it's only right-ish, because it's based on whatever tax bracket they calculate for you at that moment in time. But for that one pa

            • Man that is not how anything I have ever heard of works.

              During a period as an ex-pat in the USA, I had a contract under which my employer guaranteed me an after-tax salary. There were all kinds of adjustments done in order to achieve this.

              To make it more complex, the after-tax salary was computed based on expected after-tax salaries of comparable employees at the company.

            • Our company would give cash awards that were "after tax". They would adjust the amount so my federal taxes, deductions, and withholding would leave me the award amount as my net increase. A $1000 cash award would show up on my pay stub as a $1200 payment.
        • You might not want to rely on a blog for your information. I assure you that you can gift money and it will not be taxable. I don't recall all of the details and it isn't important enough to me to do the workof proving it. Just accept the anecdotal evidence that I have indeed received such a gift and it was not taxable.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by teg ( 97890 )

        Well either they lied, and its not a gift and therefore taxable, or it is a gift and therefore within the allowable allowance by the irs for tax exemption for gifts.

        Wouldn't anything like this be taxable? If not, a lot of employers would use monetary gifts rather than salaries or bonuses... At least, here in Norway it would be taxable. In general, a benefit received as part of a employer/employee is taxable - but there are exemptions for special events: Weddings, births, "round" birthdays, various jubilees wrt. work (e.g. employed 25 years) etc)

    • Gifts/bonuses like this are often paid using gross-up [investopedia.com]. The income is most definitely taxable, but the employer pays the tax rather than the employee, so the employee sees the full cash value of the gift.

    • Wonder how much was taxable?

      Ask Allen Weisselberg if gifts are taxable.

    • It is taxable.

      The $1,500 USD (or local currency equivalent) is a one-time gift, is taxable, and is separate from any bonus or other benefit offered.

      The gift will be subject to applicable taxes and withholding. For most countries, the gift will not be eligible for deferrals such as for the 401(k) plan or for the ESPP, unless legally required.

    • All of it. It's a bonus. It's from your employer. The IRS isn't staffed by total idiots.

  • VPs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jerrry ( 43027 ) on Friday July 09, 2021 @04:51PM (#61567425)

    Hmmm. I wonder what the VPs are getting? I'll bet it's a lot more than $1500.

  • Money well spent Microsoft.
  • MSFT gave people $1500 as an additional bonus for being around/productive during COVID times.
    Sheesh, it sounds like people were working for $1500 for the last 18 months...

  • This is what pissed me off (Score:3)

    by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Friday July 09, 2021 @05:18PM (#61567513)
    Early 90s I got drafted to a project that was way behind and over budget. I was required to be at the office at 7 AM M-Sat, and work a 12 hour day. Never mind I was usually half drunk when I strolled in Saturday morning and would have been 100% more productive at 9 AM.

    Damned thing shipped, we got a bonus. Combining the bonus and my normal wage I made minimum wage for 3 months. For something I wasn't involved in in the early stages, had no creative input in, and didn't give a shit about. Just cuz management saw me as someone who got shit done.,

    Fuck companies that force crunch mode on you. Hey kids, if a company pulls this shit on you update your resume and start looking, cuz the company you work for is run by assholes.

    And yeah, while I never worked for a game company, this goes double for you. I'm an old gamer. If you do crunch mode for a year you are not immune to your studio shutting down 2-3 months later.

    /cynical old fart
    // first layoff I didn't get caught in: Company was making 30% profit, not enough for Wall Street
    /// survived several layoffs over 40 years, all were management failures, management always came out fine

    • Just cuz management saw me as someone who got shit done.

      Welcome to the world of spot bonuses. There's no rhyme or reason. There's no common sense. There's just opinions, expectations and impressions.

      I worked my arse off to get a project review finished and I didn't get so much as a thankyou very much.
      One random dude from some terminal asked me a random email question, I wrote a fairly decent response and put a whole 15min effort into it, and he reported me to my boss saying how much of a help I was and how refreshing it was to get a detailed answer quickly. Bam

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Strider- ( 39683 )

      This is why I gave up $5k gross to move into a role where I'm no longer an "exempt" employee, and am fully entitled to overtime. Clock starts when I come in at 8am, ends when I live at 16:30. If they want me to work longer than that, they get to pay me overtime. I've more than made back that $5k, and I'm much happier too.

  • That's nice and all, but (Score:3)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Friday July 09, 2021 @05:20PM (#61567519)

    are they sure they could afford it? $1500.00 times 163,000 employees works out to just shy of $250M. That comes down to about a quarter of a percent of their approximately $97B 2020 gross profit. Way to share the wealth Microsoft!

    • I work at one of MS' enterprise parter/competitors. We also got a covid bonus, it's a bit smaller than that and in the form of RSUs. Theyr'e vesting in a few months thankfully and it's hard to complain when some people are getting fucked over, but come on, it should be enough for a nice vacation after being locked in the home officer for over a year.

  • I'm losing my bonus for COVID (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I work for a state-regulated electric/gas utility. We have had to take a financial hit during COVID due to requirements preventing customers from being disconnected for non-payment, among other things. And because we have to give our investors a stable return, we got half a bonus for last year, and we've been told "sorry, no bonus" for this year. And that's for high-performers who earned a bonus. We have lots of open positions, and growing, but retention is not a thing. Doesn't really seem sustainable.

  • I figure that the pandemic has been going on for about 1.3 years. Times 2000 hours per year is 2600 hours. $1500 / 2600 = 58 cents per hour. Grocery workers got a $4/hour hazard pay bonus (more in some places).

    That $1500 will almost (but not quite) buy you a laptop certified to run Windows 11. Yay!

  • At least you can cash it in the breakroom's soda machine.

  • So, their stock price went up, and they also made a tidy profit thanks to the massive cloud demand.

    Yet, why are people complaining if they give a bonus to the employees? Remember, they have 160,000+ people, and *if this really includes all employees*, the total bonus is 249 million dollars, or roughly a quarter billion.

    Yes, some execs will get even larger bonuses. Who cares? As long as they provide a nice compensation for the regular rank and file...

  • $1,500 is less than my smallest quarterly bonus last year. And I work for a small retail chain, not exactly notable for high pay. And it wasn't a special bonus program, it was the same formula as always. (But business did exceptionally well because we are an essential service business for a reason.)

    All in all, my total bonuses last year were about four month's pay.

    This is chump change for a company like Microsoft. And we know who the chumps are.

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