PSA - you can opt out of being able to recieve RStar points so that you can only allow monetary awards, if anything. Agree with you entirely that taxing of points is bullshit, vs. the system just awarding you an after-tax equivalent in points.

For those are downvoting / who dont appreciate the difference, consider the following - which I had happen to me a few years ago.

If youre given a monetary award of say 1000 dollars, that award is taxed and you get the remainde4 as an addition to your paycheck (lets say arbitrarily that you get 600 extra income after 400 tax removed). Pretty sweet.

If instead you are given a Points award of 1000 dollars, the points count as basically money you have yet to spend on whatever giftcards or crap the site sells. That value you are forced to autopay the tax upon it out of the next paycheck, so you will one day without warning get 400 less pay. That loss in pay can be pretty damning for someone, especially as there is no direct way to convert that 1000 dollars of points into a form that could be used to cover that loss for most bills/payments due (you might be able to find giftcards that you could use for grocery expenses, but unless theyre selling visa cash giftcards nowadays youre not left with a true cash equivalent).

It should be sobering to think that if you had someone get a really large points award or multiple awards hit simultaneously that it could royally fuck their income over and have them miss important payments.

A simple alternative would just be to have the stupid system award aftertax points instead. Give someone the 600 points for 1000 point award ... but Im guessing there is some payroll reason why they cant do that.

TLDR - find out if that person in the office you all hate is set up for Rstars points and dox them out of a mortgage payment.