Corona Bonus for Health Care Workers & Exemption from Contributions for Jobticket

Last week, the National Council approved, among other things, a EUR 500 corona bonus for healthcare staff who have been particularly burdened by the corona pandemic, as well as the exemption from contributions for the extended job ticket. We have summarized the most important changes for you.

 

​Corona bonus for healthcare professionals


The Corona Bonus for extraordinary performance by health care workers in nursing facilities and public/nonprofit hospitals during the Corona pandemic is intended to benefit the following individuals:

  • Care, nursing and cleaning staff in accordance with the Care Fund Act.

    • This includes, in particular, staff working in mobile or inpatient care and nursing services as well as part-time inpatient day care and who are in personal contact with the persons requiring care or nursing. Cleaning staff working in care facilities in the immediate vicinity of persons in need of care and assistance are also affected by extraordinary burdens caused by the Corona pandemic and can therefore also benefit from the Corona bonus.
       

  • Care and cleaning staff in hospitals, in barracks hospitals as well as in inpatient rehabilitation facilities
     
    • This includes, in particular, physicians and members of the healthcare and nursing professions who are in personal contact with the persons receiving care. Here, too, cleaning personnel working in the immediate environment of persons under care are also included.

Included in the scope are nonprofit hospitals - public and private - under the Covid-19 Purpose Grant Act. Barracks hospitals are the temporarily established medical care facilities for Covid-19 sufferers and suspected sufferers,

The aforementioned health care personnel are now to receive a duty-free and contribution-free bonus of EUR 500 per person on average. This amount is not to be understood as an upper limit for the bonus, but only as an upper limit of the federal government's financial contribution for such services.

 

Exemption from contributions for the extended job ticket


To support the switch to public transport, the extension of the tax-free job ticket with effect from 1.7.2021 was decided (BGBl I 18/2021). We have already informed you about this in our article on People Thursday, 6.5.2021 (https://www.bdo.at/de-at/topics/corona---neustart-mit-ihrem-team/erweiterung-des-steuerfreien-jobtickets).

To ensure that this extension of the job ticket is not only tax-free but also non-contributory, it has now been decided to align the ASVG with the EStG. Accordingly, the previously non-contributory reimbursement of actual travel costs by the employer for a means of mass transportation used by employees to travel between home and work will be supplemented as of July 1, 2021 by the employer assuming the costs of the weekly, monthly or annual ticket for its employees. The prerequisite for the exemption from contributions - as well as for the tax exemption - is that the card is valid at least at the place of residence or place of work and is valid for journeys within a longer period of time. One-way tickets and day passes are therefore not covered.

ATTENTION: The extended tax and contribution exemption is only applicable for tickets purchased or renewed from 1.7. onwards!

Abonnieren Sie die neuesten Nachrichten von BDO.

Please fill out the following form to access the download.