Salary Negotiations

vcuvox

Hi everyone,

I am wondering if a company does not offer or provide for a housing allowance, what is the likelihood of them offering a transportation allowance?

gaurav1441

Probability =50%. Either you would get it or You would not get Transportation Allowance. There are two mutually exclusive allowances.

yosithezet

Transportation or 'conveyance' is something which is common for many companies to offer even to locals. As such there is not necessarily any reason to believe that the lack of housing allowance leads to a lack of conveyance allowance.

curtdfw

I believe categorizing a part of one's salary as 'conveyance allowance', or any of the other allowance categories common in an India salary package, can affect your taxes.

I dug up my last appointment letter, and here's how it broke down:

13% Base salary
7% House Rent Allowance
79% Special Allowance
1% Conveyance Allowance

I have no idea how common or uncommon this setup was.

__________________
"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative" Oscar Wilde

KABAARY

Curtdfw, that was a terribly tax unfriendly package you had

Unless, your base salary was so high that the mere 7% HRA was more than sufficient to get you a mansion:

The worth of a conveyance allowance is a tax exemption worth just Rs. 800 per month.

curtdfw

Well, part of the expat deal was US tax equalization, so any unfriendliness from the India side was absorbed by my employer. My net taxes were equal to what I'd have paid in the US.

Thanks for the tip, though.

curtdfw

To borrow the Employment visa language, the total salary could fairly be described as 'a handsome amount', but no mansion, I'm afraid.

For future reference, is there a weighting of the various allowances that would have been more tax-favorable? I'd rather be coming over on the US payroll, but one never knows...