The value of your food stamps may have increased on January 1. With inflation, the maximum amount exempt from social security contributions for the employer went from 5.92 euros per title to 6.50 euros. The maximum amount that a businessman can pay his employees per working day, for meals or groceries, therefore goes from 11.84 euros to 13 euros.
Good news for the approximately 4.8 million employees in France who benefit from them and who use them to eat on weekdays or to go shopping.
With the 10% increase in the ceiling, the risk of loss could also increase. Due to the 7,500 million euros of titles issued each year, almost 10% of this amount is not consumed. According to professionals in the sector, 700 million euros are not used and lose their validity, or more than 145 euros per beneficiary employee on average. Lost quantities that, however, could be used in restaurants and food businesses.
Difficult amounts to spend
It is the digitization of these titles that has increased the phenomenon.
“When these food vouchers were still only on paper, the expired 0.5% was reimbursed at the end of the year by the issuers to their customers and redistributed to the companies’ social works, as required by law, indicates in Ecos Catherine Coupet that runs the start-up Open! Eat that issues vouchers for businesses. Since 2014 and the possible dematerialization of the vouchers, we have gone with the card to 10% of the sums not spent”.
Aware of the problem, issuers (including the four largest Edenred, Sodexo, Up and Natixis) allow unused amounts to roll over from one year to the next. However, some employees don’t spend them and let the amounts accumulate in their account.
Generalization of teleworking, maximum authorized daily limit of 25 euros, ignorance of the amounts available… There are many reasons to explain this non-consumption of values.
At the end of last November, more than 35% of the surveyed employees claimed to have between 100 and 300 euros on their card and almost 7% between 300 and 600 euros. Sums almost impossible to spend in the time allowed.
A boon for stock traders who can grow these sums but new players are trying to tackle. The start-up May thus proposes to group in a single easy-to-use kit all the advantages granted to employees such as meals, mobility, gift vouchers or various services. On its open side! Eat puts an end to the deduction that is made at the beginning of the month on the salary and only debits the beneficiary when it is consumed. The start-up also uses the bank card to be able to use it in more shops and only charges a commission of 1.5% (compared to 3-5% of historical players).
Source: BFM TV
