The Internal Revenue Service has designed special relief in support of employers’ leave-based donation programs set up to assist victims of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Under these programs, employees may elect to forego vacation, sick or personal leave in exchange for cash donations to charitable organizations providing disaster relief to disaster victims.

Under this special relief, all leave donated through cash payments to covered charitable organizations by employers before January 1, 2019 will not be included in donating employees’ income or wages. Employers will also be able to deduct the cash payments as business expenses.

Details of this relief are available in IRS Notice 2017-48 and IRS Notice 2017-52.