In law school I learnt that thanks to the doctrine of trusts, a lot of the time these perks <i>nominally</i> belong to the employee but <i>beneficially</i> belong to the company or government which paid for them.<p>This is a legal, administrative and tax-payment mess so most employers simply assign the beneficial ownership back to the employee. Doubly so since they&#x27;re not transferrable in almost every case.<p>Of course the details have changed, things vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, I last studied this more than a decade ago, I&#x27;m not a lawyer and by god this is not legal advice.