I keep seeing posts like these. I am an Indian, I got my B.Tech from India and I left for my master's almost immediately after my B.Tech. I have never worked in India. I have aging parents so I have to return back to India in the next 3 to 4 years.

Here in the US, there is base salary that is paid out in 2 checks every month. They withhold some state tax & Federal tax from your check and give you the rest. That's it. Everything else is optional and you could choose to pay for additional things if you want. They are not forced upon you. 401k(Retirement account), HSA contribution(money for health care related expenses), ESPP(money to buy employer shares at discounted price) all of them are optional. You could opt out of every single one of them and your employer will give you all of your money post taxes directly to you.

But from the few posts I saw in this subreddit, there seems to be a lot of things like HRA, Gift LTA, Special allowance, PF contribution that are included in the salary. What are all of these? Can you opt out of any of these? Why are they discussing these during salary negotiations. During college I got an offer from TCS which I can't find in my inbox anymore. I am trying to remember if TCS also had all of these or not.