INCENTIVES LINKED TO PURCHASING POWER

The value sharing premium (“prime de partage de la valeur”)

Faced with the deterioration of the economic situation and in order to prevent social movements, several laws were adopted during the summer of 2022. Among them, we can mention the law n°2022-1158 of August 16, 2022 called "Purchasing Power Law" which in its article 1^er ratifies and perpetuates the prime de partage de la valeur.

This premium can be set up in the company by unilateral decision of the employer (DUE) or by collective agreement and is aimed at a wide audience, as it can benefit employees on permanent or fixed-term contracts, full-time or part-time, holders of an apprenticeship or professionalization contract, public employees of an EPA or EPIC, and temporary workers.

The amount of the premium is freely fixed within the limit of €3,000, or €6,000 under certain conditions (in particular in case of implementation of an employee savings scheme). Within the limit of these ceilings, this bonus benefits from a favourable social and fiscal regime (depending on the employees’ income) and this in the period from 1 July 2022 to 31 December 2023.

Meal vouchers, food expenses, transportation costs, sustainable mobility, etc.

Law No. 2022-1157 of August 16, 2017 on the rectifying finance act for 2022 also provides for numerous adjustments to encourage, under certain conditions, the reimbursement of expenses incurred by employees in the performance of their missions. These include:

• Restaurant vouchers (“tickets-restaurants”), which are exempt from tax and employer contributions, have been increased to €5.92 between 1 September and 31 December 2022. Note that the law n°2022-1158 of August 16, 2022 called "Purchasing Power Law" authorizes employees, until 31 December 2023 to use meal vouchers for all or part of the price of any food product (directly consumable or not). The ceiling for meal vouchers has also been increased to 25 euros per day as of 1 October 2022 under the terms of Decree n°2022-1266 of September 29, 2022. 

  • The meal allowances paid in the context of business trips benefit from a preferential regime according to a scale revalued by 4% according to the Urssaf, and this since 1 September 2022

  • The conditions for exempting employees’ home-work travel expenses have been revised for the years 2022 and 2023. In particular, expenses related to the mandatory coverage of public transport passes can be exempted up to 75%, the ceiling for the coverage of the "sustainable mobility" flat-rate allowance has been raised to €700 in metropolitan France per employee/year (including a maximum of €400 for fuel costs) and in the event of a combination of the mandatory coverage and sustainable mobility schemes, this ceiling is raised to €800

On this point, a jurisprudence of the Paris Court of Justice dated July 5, 2022 reminds us that the employer is required to reimburse transportation costs even if the employee lives far from his place of work for personal reasons.

Working time

The two laws of August 16, 2022 introduce temporary and derogatory measures allowing :

• Companies with 20 to 249 employees can benefit from a flat-rate deduction of social security contributions on overtime. The income tax exemption ceiling for overtime is also raised to €7,500. This deduction (0.50 € per hour of overtime) is applicable from 1 October 2022 and will be the subject of a decree in the coming days according to the BOSS.

• Employees, in agreement with the employer, to monetize and buy back days or half-days of rest (conventional rests set up under Articles L. 3121-41 to L. 3121-47 of the Labor Code), and for periods prior to 1 January 2022 up to 31 December 2025.

Employee savings

Employee savings schemes have been amended to make them more flexible and accessible. In particular, optional profit-sharing agreements can be extended to 5 years, and the profit-sharing agreement can be renewed several times by tacit agreement.

law n°2022-1158 of August 16, 2022 called "Purchasing Power Law", also allows companies hiring less than 50 employees to set up optional profit-sharing schemes by unilateral decision of the employer.

In addition, a new case of exceptional early release of profit-sharing (both optional - “intéressement” or mandatory  - “participation”) is available (for the purchase of one or more goods, or the provision of one or more services) until 31 December 2022, under certain conditions. The employer must inform the employees of this possibility until 16 October 2022.

1 SEPTEMBER 2022 AND ENTRY INTO FORCE OF NEW MEASURES

On September 1^er 2022, new reporting obligations and measures for the employer came into effect:

• Deadline for companies with at least 50 employees that score between 75 and 85 points out of 100 on the professional equality index to publish their progress targets.

• Deadline for companies with more than 1,000 employees to publish any gaps in the representation of women and men among their senior executives and members of their governing bodies. The remote reporting portal should be operational in November 2022.

• Updating of internal regulations to include new definitions of harassment, discrimination and whistleblowing procedures.