He bonus, also called annual salaryis a complementary item (computable for the purposes of calculating personal income tax) of a salary nature paid by the employer twice during each yearin June and December.
Consists in one twelfth of all the remunerative concepts in money that the employer pays in a determined period.
Dependent workers –both in private and public activity– who received cash benefits between December 1, 2022 and May 31, 2023 They are beneficiaries of the payment of the payment of the half Christmas bonus in the month of June.
When is it paid?
The payment of said item can be made until Friday, June 30.
The calculation
To determine the amount that the employer must pay and the worker obtain for said item, it is enough to add all the remunerations in money (salary, wages, overtime, night hours, work rest, etc.) that the employer paid in the generation period (December 2022-May 2023 or June-November in the other annual case) and divide it by 12.
Items in kind (ticket, tips paid by third parties, items for housing or locomotion, etc.) are not computable for determining the Christmas bonus.
For rural dependent workers, items received in kind, for food and housing, are considered computable items for the Christmas bonus.
The previously determined amount corresponds to discounting personal contributions to social security, retirement contribution (15%), Fonasa (3%) and Labor Reconversion Fund (0.1%), to determine the net amount of the Christmas bonus.
If there was a subsidy from the BPS
In the case of a worker who was covered by a subsidy from the Social Security Bank (BPS) -such as maternity, illness, suspension, etc. and always during the same period of generation of the Christmas bonus- only the items paid by the employer should be considered to determine the amount of Christmas bonus and not the subsidy. This does not translate into a loss for the employee, since in the payment made by BPS for the corresponding subsidy, the entity was the one who paid the corresponding part of the Christmas bonus.
Presenteeism in domestic service
With regard to the bonus item for domestic service, the employer must determine if the payment of the premium for presenteeism corresponds, since if applicable, it must be added to the amount of the bonus. This premium consists of the payment of the equivalent to a quarter of the half Christmas bonus that corresponds to receive, conditional on that in the period being computed (December-May in this case) you have had perfect attendance.
The absences that will not determine the loss of the benefit are: duly proven illness, absences derived from the exercise of the right to strike, the statutory annual leave, special leaves and the appearance before the Wages Council of Group Nº 21.
personal income tax in the Christmas bonus
The bonus is a computable item for the purposes of calculating personal income taxHowever, unlike the Christmas bonus for December, the payment of the item in June is not affected by personal income tax, since the payment of the same is advanced monthly by increasing the taxable base of the tax by 6% per month according to what established in Decree 154/015.
The 6% increase applies only to salaries that exceed 10 BPC per month (currently $51,640). In cases of assets less than said amount, the increase is not applied.
complementary bonuses
In some cases There are companies that grant complementary Christmas bonuses, because they are agreed in Salary Councils or collective agreements for certain groups of activity or by negotiations between employees and employers.
The payment of these complementary items does not correspond to the same tax treatment as the Christmas bonus, since it corresponds to add it to the other income taxed by personal income tax for the month for the determination of the tax.
payment example
A worker who receives a nominal $60,000 per month for salary and other variable items in money, will receive a nominal half bonus of $30,000. This will correspond to discounting personal contributions to social security: retirement contribution ($4,500), Fonasa ($900) and Labor Reconversion Fund ($30). Therefore, the net bonus to be collected in June for that worker would be $24,570.
The Fonasa discount that is made in the Christmas bonus payment is a partial discount, as long as it is the first payment of the month, corresponding to discounting the Fonasa additional in the employee’s next payment. Considering that the additional from Fonasa will be deducted from the monthly payment, this generally means that the worker in the month of June receives a lower liquid monthly remuneration, compared to previous months, provided that the separate payments are made.
It is important to mention that the retirement contribution is 15% and is capped for salaries greater than $215,179.
