Providing Employee Fringe Benefits Can Increase Job Satisfaction and Performance. Fringe benefits are property and services whose benefit to employees often outweighs the cost to the employer. There are a wide variety of fringe benefits that employers can choose to offer and some are even specifically excluded from employees' taxable income. What exactly is a ? Almost any property or service provided by an employer to an employee as compensation for the employee's performance of services is considered a fringe benefit. For example, fringe benefits include the following items: an employer- provided vehicle a free or discounted commercial airline flight through your frequent flyer miles a discount on services or property a ticket to a sporting event or other entertainment a membership in a country club or social club In general, your employees must pay payroll taxes on the value of any fringe benefits you provide in their income unless the fringe benefits are specifically excluded from income under the federal income tax laws. For example, if you let your sales representatives use a company car for personal purposes, the value of this noncash fringe benefit must be included in the sales representative's wages as part of his compensation. Except for certain fringe benefits subject to special valuation rules, a general valuation rule is used to figure out how much employees include in their income. If you have no employees per se, but you do business as a corporation or as a partnership, you may be able to take advantage of some of the deductions available for the fringe benefits that your business provides. If you operate your business as a corporation or as a partnership, there may be personal tax implications involved if your business takes a deduction for fringe benefits provided. For example, if your corporation takes a deduction for the cost of certain fringe benefits it gives to you as an employee, you will probably have to include the value of the fringe benefits in your personal income. Depending on what tax bracket you're in, a deduction that your corporation takes could end up costing you money in the long run! Nontaxable Fringe Benefits. While you generally must treat fringe benefits as being part of your employees' taxable wages, there are certain fringe benefits that are excepted from this rule. The major advantage to offering the benefits on this list is that you can still take a business deduction for their cost even though your employees (or you, if you're an employee of your own corporation) don't have to pay tax on them. The nontaxable fringe benefits are the following: no- additional- cost services qualified employee discounts working condition fringe benefits very minimal fringe benefits qualified transportation fringe benefits No- Additional- Cost Services This fringe benefit arises when you provide your employees (or their spouses or dependent children) with a service that you provide to your customers or clients in your regular line of business. For example, an airline may allow its employees to fly for free when there are empty seats on a plane, or a hotel chain may allow its employees to use rooms that would otherwise be empty. Providing Employee Fringe Benefits Can Increase Job Satisfaction and Performance. Filed under Office & HR. Fact checked on Jan 13, 2014. There are quite a few Fringe items up for auction along with a lot of cool items from other TV shows and films. Including LOST (of course), The Walking Dead, Breaking. Foreword The last half of my life has been spent in the active pursuit of truth. In the following pages I sketch the broadest map of what I have learned in the. The fifth and final season of the American Fox science fiction television series Fringe premiered on September 28, 2012, and concluded on January 18, 2013. The series. For these purposes, the term employee includes: an individual currently employed by you an individual who stopped working for you because of retirement or disability a surviving spouse of an individual who died while working for you or who stopped working for you because of retirement or disability a partner who performs services for your partnership This benefit is nontaxable to employees as long as you don't incur any substantial additional costs to provide the service to your employees. Additional costs usually include the cost of labor, materials, and supplies. Keep in mind — if additional costs are incurred, the cost of the entire service is taxable, not just the added costs. Limits Apply to Qualified Employee Discounts. Qualified employee discounts are fringe benefits that arise when you give employees (or their spouses and dependent children) a price reduction on property or services that you ordinarily sell to your customers or clients. However, discounts on personal property usually held for investment, such as stocks or bonds, and discounts on real property, such as buildings or land, are not qualified employee discounts. There is a limitation on the nontaxable amount of a qualified employee discount you can provide. For property, the nontaxable discount doesn't include any amount that is more than your gross profit percent times the price you charge customers for the property. The gross profit percent is based on all property offered to customers, including your employees that are customers, in the ordinary course of your type of business and your experience during the tax year immediately before the tax year in which the discount is available. To calculate the gross profit percent, subtract the total cost of the property from the total sales price of the property and divide your result by the total sales price of the property. For services, the nontaxable discount doesn't include any amount that is more than 2. Assume all the merchandise in your store cost you about $1. The total sales price of all the merchandise is $2. Recently you gave your employee a $3. Now you must determine whether any of that discount has to be included in the employee's wages for tax purposes. Based on the gross profit percentage calculation, you should take the sales price of all your merchandise ($2. Now, take this number ($2. This gives you a gross profit percentage of 2. Now you take the 2. Subtract this number from the discount you gave your employee ($3. Since the discount you gave your employee is greater than that provided by the gross profit percentage calculation, you're going to have to include $2. For these purposes, the term employee includes: an individual currently employed by you an individual who stopped working for you because of retirement or disability a surviving spouse of an individual who died while working for you or who stopped working for you because of retirement or disability a partner who performs services for your partnership It's important to note that highly compensated employees can't exclude the value of no- additional- cost services and qualified employee discounts from their income unless the benefit is available to all employees or a group of employees defined under a reasonable classification that doesn't discriminate in favor of highly compensated employees. A highly compensated employee is an employee who satisfies either of the following: was a 5 percent owner of the employer at any time during the current year or the preceding year, or received more than $1. The $1. 15,0. 00 threshold is for 2. If a benefit is discriminatory, the entire cost of the benefit (not just the discriminatory part) must be included in the income of highly compensated employees. It's clear that the IRS will allow either all or nothing when they offer you a break on paying tax on these fringe benefits — all your company's employees must benefit equally or you will receive no benefit. As owner and president of Luxury Looks For Less, you are the only company employee entitled to a 5. The rest of your employees are entitled to a 2. Because of the 2. IRS will not let you exclude any portion of the discount from your salary because it is discriminatory toward your employees who are not owners. Your employees, on the other hand will still continue to enjoy the 2. Working Condition and Very Minimal Fringe Benefits You Can Provide. You don't have to include the value of property or services you provide to your employees as part of their taxable compensation, if they could deduct the cost of the property or services as a trade or business expense if they had paid for them. The value is considered a working condition fringe benefit. Very minimal fringe benefits are excluded from taxable compensation as well. Working Condition Fringe Benefits. Job training, educational assistance, meals that are provided for the convenience of the employer, and employer- provided vehicles used for business are among the common working condition fringe benefits for most small businesses. Vehicles that employees are not likely to use more than minimally for personal purposes because of their design (for example, a delivery truck with seating for the driver only, or tractors and other special purpose farm vehicles), also qualify as working condition fringe benefits for employees that use them. What kind of property doesn't qualify? The kinds of items that don't qualify as nontaxable working condition fringe benefits include the following: expenses that an employee can deduct under sections of the tax laws other than as trade or business expenses or depreciation physical exams, even if they're mandatory for all or just some of your employees cash payments you make to your employees unless you require your employee to use the money for expenses that are deductible in a specific or prearranged activity as trade, business, or depreciation expenses, you verify the that the money is used for such expenses, and the employee returns any unused money to you services or property offered through a Flexible Spending Arrangement (FSA) For purposes of the working condition fringe benefit, an employee includes: an individual currently employed by you a partner who performs services for your partnership a director of your company an independent contractor who performs services for you Special rules for educational assistance. For educational assistance to qualify as a working condition fringe benefit, the cost of the education must be a job- related deductible expense for your employee. That is, the payment must be for education that allows the employee to maintain skills needed or advantageous on the job, but that does not qualify the employee for a new occupation. Fringe (season 5) - Wikipedia. Fringe (season 5)Region 1 DVD cover. Country of origin. United States. No. The show was officially renewed for a 1. April 2. 6, 2. 01. Wyman served as a sole showrunner during the last season, with four other writers: Alison Schapker, Graham Roland, David Fury and Kristin Cantrell. Lead actors Anna Torv, John Noble, Joshua Jackson, Jasika Nicole reprised their roles as Olivia Dunham, Walter Bishop, Peter Bishop, and Astrid Farnsworth, respectively. Previous series regulars Lance Reddick, Blair Brown and Seth Gabel returned as special guest stars. This season takes place in 2. Observer- ruled dystopian future previously seen in Season 4's . The opening sequence for the season retains the one featured in . The hunt for the tapes which contain the plan to defeat the Observers, serve as the way to contain one story into one episode, thus creating a procedural side of storytelling. The fifth season was received positively by television critics, earning 7. Metacritic, indicating a . Reviewers praised the conclusion of the story, with most critics lauding the final scene. They said that the finale satisfied hardcore fans, created a great integration of elements from previous seasons and made a natural conclusion for the characters. Main cast. Numerous Observers from the 2. Earth uninhabitable in their own time, traveled through time to take over the Earth from humanity, instituting a Purge to kill off a large fraction. The remaining humans are tamed in an Orwellian manner by the Observers and their human Loyalist collaborating soldiers, though an underground resistance still eludes capture by the Observers. A common scene used through this season is one where Peter, Olivia, and their young daughter Etta are enjoying a picnic on the day of the Observers' arrival and conquering of the Earth in 2. Etta goes missing in this scene during all the confusion and destruction. Walter had been warned of this by September before the Observers' appearance and, with his help, devised a plan to defeat the Observers in the future, scattering key elements across various locations and leaving messages for the future on video tapes in his lab, which he then encased in amber to protect their discovery. Additionally, Walter had pieces of his brain removed that held knowledge of the plan. He, Peter, Olivia, Astrid, and William Bell purposely ambered themselves soon afterward. They are recovered by Etta Bishop, revealed to be Peter and Olivia's adult child that had gone missing during the Observer invasion, and while a Fringe division member, also working with the underground along with Broyles. Walter's brain matter is located and restored. However, Walter is soon captured by the lead Observer, Captain Windmark, who puts him under a vigorous memory scan that destroys Walter's memories of the plan, before he can be rescued. Despite this loss, the Fringe team consider clues left in the lab, and come across the tapes. They painstakingly recover each tape and follow its instructions, gathering the elements, including a young Observer child, . They find that an unseen man named Donald had helped to hide these elements with Walter. Meanwhile, Olivia and Peter work with Etta and the underground to combat the Observers, but in one encounter, Windmark catches Etta and fatally wounds her; Etta counters by triggering an anti- matter device that wipes her and several other Observers and Loyalists out. Olivia is shocked for several days at the loss of her daughter, while Peter is enraged, and at one point, opts to use an Observer implant on himself to understand how the Observers work to get revenge on Windmark, though Olivia talks him out of this. Michael proves difficult to communicate with, but after working with Nina Sharp at the cost of her life, they gain technology that can aid in communications. Michael reaches out to Walter, flooding his mind with memories, and revealing that the man Donald is really the Observer September. They are able to locate September, now more human due to his . September reveals the full extent of the plan: to use the parts to construct a time machine to send Michael forward in time to 2. Observers. September further reveals that Michael is his . September helps Fringe to gather the remaining equipment, and reminding Walter that he will need to sacrifice himself for this plan. As Captain Windmark and the Observers close in, Michael allows himself to be captured to the highly secured facility on Liberty Island; Olivia takes Cortexiphan to allow her to jump to the parallel universe, travel safely to the open Liberty Island there with the aid of her doppelganger Fauxlivia and her friend Lincoln Lee, and jump back in the same manner. Though Michael is recovered, September finds the core initiating reactor for the time machine is insufficient, and pleads with December to get a new one from the future. Though December does so, he is caught and killed by the Observers. Astrid has the idea of using the wormhole- based shipping lanes as their conduit to the future, and the plan is quickly altered for this. Peter learns of Walter's plan to sacrifice himself to take the child into the future, necessary to prevent a time paradox. September offers to take Michael instead, having come to appreciate his role as a father, but he is shot by a stray bullet as they set up the wormhole, while Olivia, enhanced by the Cortexiphan, uses the power to smash Windmark between two cars and kill him. Walter recognizes his fate, and after looking back to Peter and Olivia, takes Michael through. Time flashes back to the 2. Observers never occurs. On returning home, Peter finds a letter from Walter, containing only a slip of paper with a drawn white tulip. Episodes. Wyman served as the sole showrunner in the last season after the departure of Jeff Pinkner. In June 2. 01. 2, it was announced that co- showrunner/executive producer Jeff Pinkner, who had been with the show since the second episode, would be departing. Pinkner's former co- showrunner, executive producer J. Wyman, serves as the sole showrunner during the final season. Later that number was revised to five, with script coordinator Kristin Cantrell scripting installment nine, . Wyman stated that . That was really a very big part of what I was after, to make sure that . There’s one, specifically, that’s going to be very impactful, I hope. To be able to enjoy the last leg of what's turned into a marathon. Five years is a long time to spend with these characters. And we're making the most of it. The writers are excited to finish properly, without having to straddle the line of 'Could this be the end or not'? So when we found out that we did get a fifth season, it felt like it was such a gift to everybody who watched the show. This is what you get for being such genuine, sincere, consistent fans of this show. This is your payment. This is what you get for following us through different universes, different timelines, different characters, different timeslots. We were all over the place, and then I felt like the fifth season was a big thank- you to everybody who stuck with us for this long. With the finale, to put the finishing touches on Fringe and leave the characters in what feels like the right place, it all feels good right now. I think that Wyman wrote the perfect ending for Peter's story over all these years. His journey from prodigal son to dedicated father and husband is complete. It seemed like there was only one way to end this story properly and beautifully. I had a whole bunch of things and I'd change them. It's been a living breathing organism that's changed in so many ways. Abrams on season five. Production resumed on August 7, 2. He explained, . Basically what . It was an interesting extrapolation of what we did in the past. And furthermore, the reality that we’re depicting probably won’t be what it’s like in 2. Georgina Haig portrayed Henrietta . She appeared in the first four episodes, and numerous times during the rest of the season in flashback or memories. Michael Cerveris reprised his role as a human version of September, Donald, in . Shaun Smith recurred as Anil, a member of Resistance. Guest stars in the season include Eric Lange as Manfretti in the second episode, . Among the other guest actors were Paul Mc. Gillion as Edwin Massey (. Darryl Hastings (. Jenni Blong reprised her role as Dr. Carla Warren in . Eugene Lipinski reprised his role as December the Observer in the final two episodes; he previously recurred in seasons two to four. Jill Scott played Simone, an intuitive and oracle- like woman, in . But if those things don't matter to you, or if you were just more invested in the rich characters and their journey and finding out if they found the peace they deserved, or if you're okay with having ambiguous conclusions, then Season 5 was probably pretty damn good in your opinion. And really, at the end of the day, that's all that matters. Fringe may not have been a hit in the traditional sense, and certain story decisions may have alienated the masses. But this remarkable series did still find a devoted audience for the type of stories it wanted to tell, and that audience is quite happy. That's really all that any creators of fiction can hope for. Fringe has always grounded its bold and entertaining imaginative storytelling in deep emotional realities, and this is especially true as time- tripping Peter (Joshua Jackson) and Olivia (Anna Torv) reunite with their now- grown daughter Etta (Georgina Haig), a resistance leader, while continuing to fret over Walter. Most important, it’s (Fringe) continued to combine ambitious storytelling with pulpy, Saturday- matinee energy. It remained true to its core values: the primacy of family, the sacredness of trust, the joy of a good joke, the exhilaration of intellectual inquiry, and the jolting power of love. I quote Walter from the final hour and one last time: . An estimated 3. 2 million viewers watched the episode. It earned a ratings share of 1.
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