<prompt> Human: Howdy all,Im a 20 year old college student who has a question about a company bonus Im going to be recieving. The other day we were notified that we would be receiving a 1000 bonus and will have the chance of choosing the form in which we would like to receive it, between payroll or gift card to avoid tax. We arent fully sure whether or not we could get a visa or MasterCard gift card, if thats the case it would have to be from a particular store. In addition to this bonus we are also expecting to receive a year end holiday bonus of about 10 of the pay for the year which is included in payroll.My general question is, do I take the gift card form to avoid taxes, but may be limited to using it at a store, or doing I just take it as payroll and pay taxes on it accordingly.  <response>: The gift card is still taxable; you should be declaring that as income. What they probably mean is that getting a gift card makes tax evasion easier. 