Increased tax for WFH

[echt]

Not an AIBU, but what is theses days?

Have a look at this proposal:

www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/11/staff-who-work-from-home-after-pandemic-should-pay-more-tax

I find the argument about WFH not contributing to the infrastructure interesting, as you could have a WFH employee who formerly cycled to work and brought packed lunch never contributed to the infrastructure as put forward here.

I walked to work and took lunch to save money. All that vit D and 15,000 steps a day also saved the NHS a few quid. I earn £10k a year.

TBH I don't resent tax (I hate amazon) but this isn't a good way to go about it.

The company I work for own their building and have turned half of our floor into smaller offices and renting them out. They couldn't have us all back in the office now at the same time if they wanted to

I work in the city normally and am very lucky- company has given allowance for setting up home office. Allowed us to pick stuff up to X amount because they understood that one size doesn't fit all, as it were. Sympathetic to those with young children. Offered online fitness, mental health stuff etc. Given extra time off each month that is mandatory because they were worried that people were not taking hols and getting no downtime. Extra cash in wages every month to compensate for extra costs- heating etc. With option to donate it to charity if not needed.

Regular updates from top brass saying up to us and things have changed but committed to getting back to office for a variety of reasons including understanding that some people have challenging home lives/ etc.

I'm very lucky.

Deutsche Bank sound like dicks tbh and I'm not sure why a huge bank opinion is being reported.

It's nothing to do with tfl it or pret. It's too do with their work culture.

Not impressed.

'you could have a WFH employee who formerly cycled to work and brought packed lunch never contributed to the infrastructure as put forward here.

You could, but they would be a minority.'

A minority maybe but common in my office.

Meglet- yes! 8000 steps a day without even thinking about it.

I miss my mates as well. Who live all over but worked in town.

I'm back in the little world of my local town same as a few decades ago. Ah well.

Awful idea I've wfh for the last two years in the shittest paid job just so I can hold down work and do school pick ups and drop offs for dc. Deutche bank sitting on their high thrones in the city on this one.
They are probably under pressure to allow their staff to wfh in the long run now and don't like it.

Here's a thought. Raise your 5% extra tax by giving everyone a pay rise... It would also take more people out of working poverty.

I guess that one didn't make it into the big bank's report.

Work out 5% across the whole company and give the lower paid a good uplift.

Works for me.

Just going to check something back in a mo...

The comments here are the most interesting bit:

www.bbc.com/news/business-54876526

Just tried to check their gender pay gap, can't see them there. Not sure why.

Anyway. Who will be more predisposed/ pressured/'it makes sense' to WFH... Will be mainly women.

So they can tax women more than men and also. Given they are clearly red hot keen on presenteeism. Not promote them. Yay!

My guess is big indirect discrimination thing in this erm amazing plan.

Since when did companies like Deutsche Bank give a fuck about fair taxation.

This is the same Deutsche Bank that has propped up Trump's bankrupt businesses for years, to the tune of $340m worth of debt that it's now trying to dump. Not exactly the bank of good ideas.

Thanks for the link.

I wasn't able to see their argument before.

Not sold on it tbh. I suspect a certain bias around WFH 'benefits' in the people who thought to investigate this and those who did the analysis.

Interesting but nope.

The amount of men I know who do NOT want to be at home with their families and stay on at the office when they don't have to is many.

In lockdown etc many have said slightly guilty that their wife is picking up the childcare etc while they shut themselves away...

I see this fucking women doubly tbh, the more I think about it.

The more I think about it, the more I think it might be right for me to personally suffer a cost, but for it to be structured as an increased tax on higher earners than a tax on home workers. Because, as has been pointed out repeatedly, the people who benefit the most from staying at home, and the people who are the most reluctant to return to the workplace, are the disabled, mothers and carers. Homeworkers could be low earners. They're not all well-paid white-collar workers.

Tax the higher earners and the men shoulder their share too. Which is only right.

You can't assess from someone's personal taxes whether they will definitely buy a sandwich from Pret, but you can assess who is most likely to be able to afford a reduction in take-home salary. Spoiler alert: it's unlikely to be the people on NMW, or the people who are only just about better off in work than looking after their kids full time.

As much as I don't want to pay more taxes, I'm not prepared to put my personal wants above the personal needs of people with more complex and more financially precarious situations than my own.

I don't agree. Though to reflect more wfh perhaps start charging business taxes on turnover not business rates and corporation tax, so that internet businesses pay a greater share.

My friend is saving loads! Her petrol was costing a lot more than her heating etc and she now has no childcare costs as she can drop off and pick up. She openly states this.

I'm travelling to work still so saving nothing at all.

Everyone's situation is different some will save but some will lose. There has always been a huge inequality in circumstances and this has been amplified during covid

The guardian and DB can bugger off with that one, and I’ll go and pick up my eyeballs which have rolled so hard they’ve fallen out of my head. There’s nothing like a good dose of absolute fury to start the day.

God for fucking bid the peasants dare to have money.

I have been WFH throughout the pandemic. All while trying to teach my kids when the schools were closed. I still WFH now. I have already paid more tax in the way of VAT with the increased food bills, increased heating bills and paying for all my own office furniture. I have more disposable income now. Surely based on my limited knowledge of economics, this is a good thing to drive a free market economy? Isn't this what we will rely on to drive the recovery after this shit show ends?

I would prefer to see the companies who pay no tax despite earning billions pay their share. I would like the abuse of the furlough system to be addressed and those companies who have abused it made to pay back what they claimed.

Ridiculous idea.

This is a really strange way of thinking of it to me. People who work from home are actually saving infrastructure costs. 1000s of people not driving on roads day in day out will save on wear and tear for example. Fewer people travelling on the tube might mean they could cut down train frequencies (which do go up during peak times) etc. Being at home doesn't mean you're not contributing to the economy. You still use electric, gas, internet, water. You still buy food (and I'm sure lots of the kind of people who previously got their lunch in pret everyday will still pop to their local coffee shop). Anyway I can't see the government going for this. It would be political suicide, and also probably quite problematic under the equalities act in terms of affecting more disabled people (and possibly also women/parents). I think what's much more likely is that companies will start paying full time work from homers less.

According to the Times report on the proposal Deutsche Bank said 'WFH offers direct financial savings on expenses such as travel, lunch, clothes and cleaning'.

I'm still eating lunch which I have to buy. I have to clean my house more because I'm in it more, clothes is neither here nor there as I still need clothes and I didn't have to buy specific work clothes and I cycled to work.

I've found working from home means more hours of work and more downtime spent doing housework because there are more people at home more of the time. I think this is pretty consistent with the general position that women have done more unpaid labour this year.

It is galling to be told that we should now not only do this work (including the man's work because he's a highly paid DB executive) but pay extra tax for the privilege.

Another London-centric proposal. We weren't all subsidising TFL and going to Pret every day (there's no Pret within 20 miles of where I live). Some of us are already on fairly low wages because we don't have the costs of working in a big city whether WFH or in the office.

I hate wfh and would happily trot back to the office, I don't see how it's fair when many haven't had a choice.

This just sounds like Deutsche Bank trying to encourage their workers back into the office, after the pandemic.

Their opinion is not the same as someone taking a proper look at the effect WFH has on the economy and the sort of people who would take it up.

I'm the other side of this. Before lockdown I walked to work, took my own lunch and never bought coffee out. Now due to spacing issues I have to drive to a different office and cover there. It costs me an extra £30 per week in fuel. Plus I have to leave earlier and forfit my daily exercise and fresh air. If I use car parks near work it's almost £6 per day. So I'm well out of pocket. I can't work from home.
Having said all this I don't agree with taxing those WFH.
I'm dreading the end of lockdown n terms of traffic as there isn't an option for me. On the other hand I can't wait to get back to my usual office and be able to walk to work and use my time for my own benefit rather than sitting in traffic.

@JaJaDingDong

There’s no way Bt, virgin and other internet providers are going to continue allowing millions of people to work from home on residential broadband packages without a price hike. Not a chance

I hadn't thought of that, but I suspect you're right

I'm just hoping they'll do it in a way that doesn't penalise people not working from home. It might be more morally acceptable to them to just hike prices generally, which would just impact the people who can afford it the least the most (and internet isn't a luxury these days, it's needed to make benefit claims so everyone needs access).