With the continued decline of real estate market values, many homeowners are finding themselves locked into mortgages with outstanding loan balances greater than the property’s present value. This puts these homeowners in a precarious situation, with several unattractive options:
It’s a fact that tax assistance benefits cost an average 55-60 cents for every dollar of taxable relocation expense. In other words, a $10,000 lump sum payment could result in $5,500 to $6,000 of tax assistance costs.
While potentially substantial, these charges can be mitigated: By properly structuring relocation benefits, taking advantage of relocation-friendly tax laws and customizing tax assistance policy to the needs of transferring employees, companies can control and potentially reduce tax assistance costs. Read More
A substantial and often hidden expense
Tax assistance is an expensive and sometimes hidden cost of corporate relocation programs. In fact, it’s the third most expensive benefit in a relocation program, on average, after home sale and household goods.More specifically, the 2008 Worldwide ERC® Transfer Volume and Cost Survey reported that it cost an average $76,600 to move an existing employee, of which more than 10% was spent on employee tax assistance benefits. It can cost more to provide tax assistance than to pay for an employee’s house hunting, temporary living and final trip expenses combined!
Welcome to the TRC Global Mobility blog, which is designed to provide the latest insights on domestic and international corporate and government relocation services. Our goal with this blog is to provide useful information to human resources professionals, relocation managers, realtors, appraisers, and other relocation industry professionals.
Drawing on our more than 20 years of experience providing personalized corporate relocation services backed by advanced technology and thought leadership, we hope to provide fresh perspectives to our readers, as well as imaginative and resourceful advice on different situations. Our topics will include best practices, tax changes, service procurement, employee benefits and services, benchmarking, real estate market information and relevant current events, relocation news and trends.