The employees of the Alpine Airways are given free flights to the ski resorts if there are empty seats on flights. The cost of such flights would be about $300 per employee.
a. The employees must include the value of the flights in their gross income.
b. The employees can exclude the value of the flights from their gross income because the employees were not given an option of receiving cash.
c. An employee is required to include the value of the flights in gross income only if the employee would otherwise have bought the flights.
d. The employees are not required to include the value of the flights in their gross income because this is a no-additional cost fringe benefit.
e. None of the above.
Answer: D. This is a no-additional-cost type of fringe benefit.