I agree with you, 100 percent. Anybody who has a job today deserves mad respect, loud applause and free snacks galore. To some of us, it’s an inalienable, if often inedible, human right.
A typical free-snack selection offered by employers include pretzels, protein bars, rice cakes, teeny-tiny chocolate bars and free frizzy water to wash it all down with. Not to mention coffee, tea and oat milk. That’s a brief tour of the snack universe in companies today.
Or so I thought. If you thought the same, it’s time for a rethink.
In a recent Cam Kettles article in Bloomberg, “Trump’s Tax Law Quietly Takes Aim at a Popular Perk: Office Snacks,” I learned that companies today are no longer satisfied in taking away your freedom; they also want to take away your snacks. So, if you do cave and return to work from your remote cave with its unparalleled proximity to your pantry and your fridge, you may not find the familiar free-snack supply waiting for you. No more dried fruit for dried-up employees. No nuts for nuts.
Surprisingly, it’s not totally the fault of management. Hidden deep in the “Big Beautiful Bill” is a change to the tax law, which takes aim at the one perk many of us received: free office snacks. According to the new law, companies will no longer be able to deduct the cost of the free-flowing snackery. While once they could deduct 100 percent and then 50 percent, the new law allows a deduction of 0 percent. As in zero, zilch, bupkis.
Of course, companies can choose to take on the full expense of vegan seaweed chips and organic watermelon juice, but you know your management — doesn’t seem likely, does it?
This leaves the question: What are you going to do about it? You’re not going to drag yourself to the office and drag bags of Skinnypop, as well. And you certainly don’t want to starve or — be honest now — pay for your snacks yourself.
Is there any hope for the snack-starved? Here are five tasty solutions to snack tax fallout. And let me add, bon appetite!
No. 1: Office Supplies are Useful, and Also Tasty.
The refrigerator is closed, but the supply cabinet is open. Paper clips may not be as tasty as potato chips, but they have a lot fewer calories. Use the office shredder to turn dry reports into pleasingly pulpy bucatini. Sprinkle with microwaved Post-it notes and pour on the sauce from a boiled tri-color printer cartridge. Delicioso!
No. 2: Hunger Strike.
Management will never know how important snacks are to your personal productivity unless you show them. Give up breakfast, lunch and dinner until you are so weak you wander the hall in a daze. (Warning! This strategy won’t work if you already wander the halls in a daze.)
When your manager sees you chewing pencils and licking tape dispensers, they’ll get the idea. If they want to work you to death, they first have to feed you.
No. 3: When a Fainting Fit Fits.
Giving a presentation? Stop at slide No. 25 and crumple dramatically to the floor. Don’t let your co-workers call an ambulance. Insist you can continue — if you can have a granola bar. Gluten-free, with organic chia seeds. You’ll not only make it clear that everyone needs snacks but prove to your managers that no matter what obstacles you face, you will keep giving mind-numbing presentations. That says management potential.
No. 4: Jerky Memories and Chex Mix Dreams.
Light a campfire in the parking lot. Gather all the company’s recently hired Gen Z employees and tell true tales of the snacks that used to be. When the entitled newbies learn about the bottomless bowls of Cheez-Its and free jerky treats that are no longer available, they will troop to management and resign. And wouldn’t that be just delicious?
No. 5: Home Cooking.
As a last resort, cook up a batch of snacks and bring them into work. Marketing is full of hot air, so get out the air fryer and fry up some crispy chickpeas and mozzarella chips. Nut butter energy balls are a real crowd-pleaser, especially in HR, where there hasn’t been a smidgen of energy since Hector was a pup. Accounting is one department everyone wants to take a hike, so whip them up a big bowl of trail mix. They’ll get the message.
If the demise of the snack tax deduction depresses you, remember that tax laws change frequently. The IRS could start taxing numbskulls. Your company will never survive.
Bob Goldman was an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at bob@bgplanning.com.
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