all them the "perks of the job."

They're often taken for granted, but your employer may provide you with several benefits that the government never has to know about - or even more importantly - doesn't want to know about.

In my last column, I introduced the concept of tax exclusions. These exclusions are income that escapes taxation for various statutory, constitutional and administrative reasons. This column will continue to explore the availability and the planning opportunities created by these special tax provisions.

One of the least appreciated of these special perquisites are those holiday and special event gifts that employers provide.

Say you get a turkey each year during the Thanksgiving season. Enjoy it. It's free in every sense of the meaning. Merchandise distributed to you as an employee on holidays is excluded from your income if it is not of substantial value and given for substantially non-compensation reasons.

Unfortunately, this doesn't apply to cash distributions such as bonuses.

Similar to the exclusion for holiday gifts, you need not include in income the discounts or privileges of relatively small value that you, as an employee, receive, where such discounts are given primarily to provide good employee relations and do not take on the character of additional compensation.

If you're a road warrior or routinely have expenses because of your job that are then reimbursed, you don't have to worry about tax issues here either.

The law doesn't tax reimbursement expenses that are truly reimbursements for expenses of your employer rather than income amounts truly compensatory in nature. This category includes such items as reimbursements for cab fares and payment of supper money. If you, as an employee, can arrange with your employer to work from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. rather than from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and your employer agrees to provide you with a dinner allowance, these personal expenses can be converted into non-taxable income. Arranged correctly, wouldn't it go down smooth to have the Internal Revenue Service buy you dinner?

The value of dependent care assistance that an employer provides for an employee under a dependent care assistance program is not generally included in your income. However, if payments for child care expenses are made to your child under age 19, or one who qualified as your dependent, such payments are taxable. You can, however, exclude payments to a child 19 or older who is not your dependent.

The value of dependent care assistance that you may exclude from your income is limited. The Tax Reform Act of 1996 put a $5,000 cap on dependent care expenses. Moreover, any amounts excluded under a dependent care assistance program reduced the amount of expenses otherwise eligible for the child care credit.

The value of meals and lodgings provided to you, your spouse or your dependents, without charge by your employer, is not taxed if the following three criteria are met:

For example, a waitress may be required to eat her meals on the premises during busy lunch and breakfast hours, or a bank may furnish meals on the premises to limit the time tellers are away during busy hours. Alternatively, meals and lodgings provided to a worker at a construction site in a remote part of Alaska would be excluded due to the inaccessibility of other facilities.

An employer can give discount fare cards, passes or tokens to an employee who takes public transportation to work. If the subsidy provided is not worth more than $65 per month to you as an employee, it is considered a fringe benefit and, while the employer can deduct it, you do not receive any taxable income. Moreover, employer-provided free parking, up to a value of $170 per month, is also excluded from income.

While the above employee-related exclusions are not exhaustive, they represent avenues of opportunity to receive tax-free compensation. You should be aware of their existence, their requirements, and, where appropriate, use them to maximize your true net, after tax, compensation.