> They wouldn't be very difficult to tax, you could easily tax them by looking at how much they cost to provide, divided by the number of employees receiving th

> They wouldn't be very difficult to tax, you could easily tax them by looking at how much they cost to provide, divided by the number of employees receiving them. Services all have a price tag. I meant more that the second-order effects would probably be negative. I'm not interested in paying "my share" of tax for a new pool table, can I opt out by swearing that I'll never use it? Does my employer then have to police who uses it? Are there enough people willing to pay for it - even with the negative feedback of people opting out making it more expensive for those who opt in? I think when you get into the area of free services (day care, dry cleaning, etc) it's much murkier. In many cases the free benefit replaces one that I would normally pay for, so it's not in the end much different from (say) a cash day care allowance.