The choices would be between cutting the salary of a person using a company car park as part of a negotiated contract deal or absorbing an extra tax expense that would border on several thousand dollars.
"The chances of reducing a salary are slim. I can see it not going well. This will cost the employer and that is a worry. It is a cost employers will wear on the chin but it doesn't feel right," he said.
Revenue Minister Peter Dunne has released a paper suggesting broadening the tax rules around salary and wage packages that include both cash and non-cash benefits.
It could be a car park provided on the employer's premises or a benefit provided to an employee of a charitable organisation, Mr Dunne said.
Mr Turner was not convinced when contacted by the Otago Daily Times that the department and Mr Dunne were acting fairly by taking things away from people who were used to them as a right.
Other issues the department would consider was employers providing child care on-site - hospitals and universities were regular suppliers of those services. Employees of charities who used employer-provided cars were also in the firing line, he said. Two of those - car parks and charities - had been targets of the department previously.
"That became the biggest debacle you have ever seen. Eventually, the Government backed down. It's the same deal this time around," Mr Turner said.
Charities were concerned they would lose their fringe benefit tax (FBT) exemption.
Last time, they had to pay consultants to make submissions on their behalf. It was not uncommon for charities to provide cars to their social workers. In some cases, those cars were not signwritten.
"If we provide a car, it has Polson Higgs written on it. But if it's parked outside a private house with Rape Crisis or Women's Refuge painted on it, we don't think that is appropriate."
As soon as charities lost their FBT status, that was less money they had for their work, a point made strongly during the last round of consultations, Mr Turner said. The car park issue meant a lot of people would spend a lot of time convincing the Government it was a silly thing to do.
"That is what happened last time and it's frustrating to see it pop up again. When the Government talks about a level playing field, it is only levelling it out one way. It is evident the Government needs money and it's tilting the field towards collecting more cash," he said.
However, Mr Dunne said the IRD issues paper suggested the benefits would become taxable when provided as part of a salary trade-off.
A salary trade-off would be defined to pick up both explicit and implicit trade-offs.
Including both taxed and present non-taxed benefits as income for social assistance calculation purposes, as suggested in the issues paper, would make social assistance eligibility fairer.
"Families receiving fringe benefits may currently be eligible for social assistance while other families on an equivalent cash income are not. There is clearly a fairness issue there," Mr Dunne said.
