The Payroll module of Expert Tax provides the option to generate the Christmas Bonus Report, allowing you to see which of your employees are eligible for the bonus and the amount they are entitled to according to the applicable law.
To calculate the Christmas Bonus, the following requirements must be met in the program:
1. Employment date in the employee's profile.
- The employment date is necessary to determine which labor reform law applies to the employee.
- Employees who were already in their positions at the time the 2017 Labor Reform was approved (before January 26, 2017) must work 700 hours between October of one year and September of the next to be entitled to receive 6% of their total salary, up to a maximum of $10,000. For dock workers, it is sufficient to have worked 100 hours.
- Employees who started in their positions after the 2017 Labor Reform (after January 26, 2017) must work 1,350 hours between October of one year and September of the next to be entitled to receive 2% of their total salary, up to a maximum of $600 for employers with 21 employees or more.
- For employers with 20 employees or fewer, the Christmas bonus cap is $300.
- If the employer has 15 employees or fewer and the employee meets these requirements, the employer must provide a bonus equivalent to 3% of the total salary up to a maximum of $10,000.
2. The employee must have payrolls created within the period from October of one year to September of the next.
Example: For the 2024 Christmas bonus report, the employee must have payroll(s) created within the period from October 1, 2023, to September 30, 2024.
3. Total hours worked.
You must enter the hours worked by each employee either manually or via Excel in the Christmas Bonus area so that the program can generate the report.
Note: Regardless of whether the employee is hourly or salaried, the hours worked must be entered in the Christmas Bonus area as the program does not extract this information from the payrolls.
To enter the hours worked, follow these steps:
A. Select the Reports tab.
B. Go to the Christmas Bonus Icon.
C. Choose the tax year to work on.
D. Press Modify Hours.
E. Select how you prefer to modify the employees' hours, either Manually or by Importing from Excel.
To modify Manually, simply enter the number of hours worked by the employee.
To modify using Excel Import, download and fill out the template with the data of the hours worked, and then import the modified file into the program.