For every dollar a participant contributes to a pre-tax benefit plan, your company will save just over seven cents because FICA taxes don't need to be paid on these contributions. So, if an employee contributes $5,000 annually to one or more of these accounts, your company will save approximately $350 that year in taxes as well.

And, I've got even better news to share. Signing up your colleagues for pre-tax benefits is good for them too, since the benefits are exclusively designed to save them money. 

Like it or not, we all face some combination of out-of-pocket health care, dependent care and/or commuter expenses. So don't let your coworkers skip the opportunity to plan ahead and take advantage of the opportunity to save up to 40 percent on these routine and often unavoidable expenses.

Here's what you need to do next. 

Set higher expectations for enrollment than last year 

Only around one in five eligible participants signs up each year for any one of the various pre-tax accounts. These historically low numbers present a great opportunity for you. 

Just as it did with 401(k) plans, it will take time before employees are familiar enough with pre-tax benefits to want to enroll; so the key is to continually reinforce the opportunity to utilize these benefits to stretch their hard earned dollars. (By the way, I'm sure your benefits provider is anxious to help you better educate your colleagues as well. Just give them a call.) 

Track and promote your success

Since new participants and their contributions equate to money saved, you should track the progress toward reaching your goal for increasing enrollment in 2012. And upon reaching your goal, don't be shy about promoting the savings you achieved for your company. Everyone appreciates initiative and a thoughtful plan to support the company's bottom line growth. And calculating the FICA savings can be a real eye-opener for you—and your CFO.

Responses to Readers' Questions

Q:  Would ending "use it or lose it" change the rules for the early funding of FSAs, also known as the uniform coverage rule?

A: A number of folks submitted this question, and the answer is that we don't know yet. Ultimately, this will be either determined by the language contained in approved legislation or rules to adopt the approved legislation determined by the respective federal agencies.

As some of you suggested in emails to me, there are several ways that the pre-funding of FSAs could be accounted for, such as withholding the funds from a participant's final paycheck or following the dependent care model and insisting that participants pay as they go. We'll have to see what the policy makers decide.

It's important though to be sure that steps you take to mitigate this are compliant with the rules—and for most plans, it's not really an issue.

By reading this column, you'll note that the plans generate savings—and those savings make this plan a no-cost benefit. Even subtracting administrative costs and recouping any overpayments from employees who overspend their accounts before termination—there's still savings to be had. And, increases in enrollment serve to make more savings available.