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.

There are numerous threads on here about how much money people have saved while working from home - if they continue to WFH, those people need to contribute more instead of expecting someone else to.

@Ohthatsgreat MN is a fan of paying more tax in general, just not if it comes from their own pockets. There's always angry threads like this when tax rises are proposed. I imagine there'll be a similar one moaning about CGT proposals soon. That's actually a government one and much more likely to come to pass.

So far I have fallen into pretty much every category of people they want to tax more. Not sure I'll be able to afford it!

@cdtaylornats

It would be better to tax corporations and those with high wealth, so not indexed to income but assets.

So forcing widows to sell the family home because they can't pay the tax out of their pension.

Absolutely very comfortable with that. They couldn't afford the home anyway if they can't pay the tax.

@Lily193 absolutely. I don't wfh but I fully expect there to be tax rises across the board. This is only a proposal by a think tank anyway, doubt it will come to pass.

Someone's got to pay for it and it will be the taxpayer one way or another. Question is how.
I do have more money since lockdown because I normally have an expensive commute (train plus parking) and have to wear smart clothes at work. I agree this should be taxed. Problem is it's impossible to implement fairly, impossible to tax me without also taxing my colleague who walks to work. But in general this would put the burden on the higher paid. I suspect also they will increase council tax so the more expensive houses pay a larger share. It will look fairly socialist for a Tory government however they do it

Our admin teams have all been told to WFH permanently where they have been inefficient and caused us lots of extra work

If their home becomes their contractual base of work then any London weighting should depend on their home address if they were employed in that location. Its a payment to address cost of living in London, not cost of commuting.

If working from home causes problems for the rest of the organisation then the management need to look at their processes, not automatically blame it on the people. My experience of working with the health sector has generally made me wince at out of date business processes and antiquated technologies. Its very easy to divide a workforce against each other whilst letting the decision makers off the hook.

Public transport is largely under supported and over priced in the UK, has been for decades. In many parts of Europe use of public transport has a tax incentive.

Tax on assets and wealth is a more effective way of taxing fairly but look out for Daily Mail headlines aboout the poor widow in her family home on a pension (its always a poor widow, women being so pathetic an 'all) and a lack of headlines about asset rich super wealthy such as Rees Mogg who offshore a great deal of wealth generated from assets whilst voting against measures to protect tenants in those assets, or billionaires who relocate to Monaco and Singapore.

[quote IrishMamaMia]@Ohthatsgreat MN is a fan of paying more tax in general, just not if it comes from their own pockets. There's always angry threads like this when tax rises are proposed. I imagine there'll be a similar one moaning about CGT proposals soon. That's actually a government one and much more likely to come to pass.[/quote]
Agree very much, I was just reading about the CGT one which will hit many people. I don’t think people realise the the state of the country’s finances and what is coming to sort that out. Many have been insulated from the reality working from home. I’m one of them. I don’t want to pay more tax either, but it’s coming.

Fundamental questions like who is going to pay for trains, tube and trams if commuters aren’t on them? Should we scrap them or should funding come from general taxation? Or should the people that use them pay? Is it fair that the plumber in Norwich gets a tax increase to keep tfl running for example?

A small number of people pay most income tax. Should we spread the load more fairly to ensure everyone feels accountable to the tax system? We can’t keep taxing the ‘squeezed middle’ more and more. I think there’s an illusion over taxing millionaires more, as there aren’t that many and they are more likely to have assets that make them millionaires rather than pure income. So do we go down the route of taxing wealth?
I don’t have the answers (before anyone jumps on me) I’m just saying there are going to be some difficult and unpopular choices ahead.

Yes, the problem is that the plebs might actually save some money for their futures in pensions, pay down their mortgages, spend more in their local areas doing hobbies they didn’t have time for when they had a 4 hour round commute every day... basically dispose of their own money as they see fit.
Can’t have that. It would be awful.

I was working from prior to the pandemic, unfortunately due to the nature of my work and contract I was unable to be furloughed but there was no help so I spent 6 months with no income. I was also trying to get a small business off the ground, obviously that also stopped but again I qualified for no help.

I don't earn much over minimum wage, so if they want to tax me more now I'm working from home it will make life very interesting. We have nothing left at the end of the month as it is and now I'm working again I'm catching up with bills I couldn't cover as I chose to prioritise food and a roof over our heads.

Get the companies to cover the costs, they don't pay the employees enough as it is, we already subsidise them with uc and tax credits.

I run a small organisation and whilst we have saved on electricity etc, we've invested in more equipment for comfortable home working and the lease still ahs to be paid.

We've also NOT increased workload - we're explicitly encouraging employees to take breaks and do whatever they need to get through this. The staff are doing a great job of maximising productivity, and any odd excess hours can be taken as lieu.

I hate the narrative that businesses are all bad. Some are, yes. On a much lower level, you've just got a huge number of people who didn't expect this any more than anyone else and are making odd or imperfect decisions. And a lot of people who were shit beforehand, who are guess what, still shit employers now.

I'd like to see a LOT more support and incentives to get people spending to move the money around. Spending in new areas will help generate new sectors that are fitted to a new way of working. Which is why I've hired a local IT support contractor to support our remote working, and got a local catering van (paid for by the company) to come and serve food/drinks to staff when in the office (who has then got subsequent private bookings from staff).

I'm happy to spend my way out of this on choosing a service I receive. I'm not happy to be taxed.

I posted it earlier too. I had to accept a HUGE pay cut, equivalent of the commuting costs to London, that I would never have done otherwise. I had to get the most expensive broadband I could get in my area. I also did majority of the unpaid childcare that women ended up doing in this pandemic. I am very fucked off with this idea.
WHEN THE FUCK WILL AMAZON AND COSTA PAY TAXES!?

Working from home

I was offered permanent WFH last year and turned it down. I don’t normally have any commuting costs as I have private fuel as a BIK which I am taxed on, I have a parking space at work. I am still paying tax on my fuel as if I cede this benefit I will never get it back. I sometimes buy a lunch, but often have leftovers, as I am at home.

So I am potentially saving about £10 a week on lunches =£460 a year, (6 weeks holiday a year) but I would pay an additional £5,000 a year under this proposal. If I give up the fuel benefit, I would pay about £2k a year less tax, but have to pay for the fuel I use.

I am paying more for heating etc at home, but it is my employer saving office costs (if able to down size offices, which currently Social distancing is preventing).

I do expect tax rates to increase to cover the costs of COVID, my husband received furlough pay for 3 months earlier in the year, and is furloughed again, but to charge me for WFH when I have declined it previously would not be acceptable.

NO WAY.

I walk to work, its less than 10 minutes. I usually take a packed lunch or even walk home to throw on a wash and eat soup and a sandwich. I occasionally work from home as well but at the moment I'm stuck doing so. I don't see how me working in office or at home affects local infrastructure one bit.

Governnment should be encouraging it anyway - less pollution, less congestion etc. etc.

The last lockdown saw electric and heating bills increase. It is in fact possible to claim a small tax refund for homeworking. I've never bothered but if they implement this, I certainly will and I doubt I'll be the only one. Its an absolutely worthless amount of money - over the year it might buy you a couple of lunches out but none the less I'd do it on principal

home working tax relief

That working from home rebate will be removed at some point for sure. They won’t do it now as it would be seen as mean and get bad headlines. But at the right point, hidden within a raft of other changes I expect it to be removed.

However, if we're not contributing to infrastructure, that's because we're not using it. If we're not using it, there doesn't need to be as much of it. Simple.

This is both true and, I think, quite concerning. DH (teacher, so definitely can't work from home!) takes the train daily for part of a commuter route into London - he said he's been the only person in the carriage most days since he went back in September. Which is very nice and peaceful for him, but at some point the train company will surely reduce services - and then I suspect it won't be viable for DH to get the train at all, because the trains will be too infrequent, so he'll drive. And so will lots of other people. I think the signs are really worrying - there was a survey recently that said the majority of people say they think they'll use their cars more post-Covid, the transport statistics for the period where WFH was no longer encouraged showed that car journeys were nearly back up to 'normal' levels but public transport wasn't. A couple of my friends in London who would never have dreamt of owning a car before have now bought one. I get why people feel safer in a private car than public transport, but I think it's a real worry - ultimately, climate change is a far greater threat than Covid and we should be moving away from private cars, not towards them. I do think we're going to lose infrastructure and we won't ever get it back and that's a bit of a disaster. However, I don't think making people who WFH pay for it is the answer!

@rainkeepsfallingdown - this is aligned with my thinking. In my own circumstances, I can see it being 'right' that I end up paying a lot more tax. I wouldn't like it and it would impact my living standards, but I can afford it better than others. However, I can afford it due to the salary I get.

This proposal is awful. The comments in the article are offensive. Saying people are not contributing to the economy. Suggesting we MUST be milked by certain industries and if we don't willingly buy their services, the money will be extracted from us. The breezy assertion that this is no problem because everyone is saving at least 5% of their salary not commuting (see above - we had choices before to some extent about expenses). The idea that if you enjoy some good fortune it should be removed.

It's also wrongheaded. A tax on progress. Very likely to kill off flexibility and nascent wfh policies, especially for part time wfh. And divisive. Entrenches the idea that wfh is some sort of jolly and that if someone else has a perk or advantage you don't it should be removed from them.

And 5% is MASSIVE! Would be more than double my council tax and is a quarter of basic rate of tax. I find it hard to believe this isn't just a grab for cash.

So tax me - 5%, whatever. But don't tax wfh.

I can't WFH and I don't contribute anything, I walk to work and take my own lunch. I don't even pay tax as I don't earn enough! Seems a bit unfair.

I read the Guardian article and don't understand how it would be levied? Through council tax?
What about those who always worked from home, e.g. the self-employed?
I agree with the pp who wrote:
They’ll do bloody anything to avoid taxing the highest earners more to pay for this, or getting big corporations to pay their taxes

Also what if the person working from home is a low earner themselves?

This can’t happen because it would be directly and indirectly discriminatory to people with protected characteristics. People more likely to WFH include older people, people with disabilities, women with kids (pre-COVID, it was mostly women and rarely men that made this change to flexible WFH).

So any change to taxing people more because they WFH should be a non-starter. Having said that I suspect there may be a squeeze on all the tax free allowances/subsidies that can be used to eg buy computers for WFH.

I do have concerns about funding for public transport but I have zero sympathy for multinational coffee chains who have over expanded and think they deserve a taxpayer subsidy. One of the best things about WFH is the great food and drink on offer...either in the house or from a local cafe.

I’m the other side of this too. Worked in a hospital throughout, 2 hour commute on public transport. Our admin teams have all been told to WFH permanently where they have been inefficient and caused us lots of extra work. They’re still awarded London weighting payment. I’m expecting TFL to raise fares next year and/or put on a much reduced service. Which I’ll have to pay for (and suck up an even longer unpaid commute) while my admin colleagues have a nice life. There will need to be some rebalance strategy.

All of this could be solved by giving you a pay rise or changing the pay and benefits structure in other ways. There is no need to leverage hypothecated taxes on large swathes of the population who, by working from home, are significantly reducing their carbon footprint and providing an economic boost to their local communities by spending more of the disposable incomes at local businesses.

The DB proposals are myopic and proposed by an organisation that is heavily exposed to commercial real estate risk.

I think it’s ridiculous. I used to pack a lunch and I don’t drink coffee so the only place I was contributing before that I’m not anymore is to the train company. But since I’ve been saving my rail fares each month, I’ve used that money to buy things for my house and I’m saving up for a new bathroom which is now actually feasible. It’s not like I don’t intend to spend the money ever again.

I think if they were to introduce such a tax, it should only be on higher rate taxpayers. Where people are lower earners they tend to spend their money and higher earners are more likely to squirrel it away (not that saving is bad, just it’s not what the government wants to encourage at the moment).

I think it’s a mistake to assume everyone wfh earns a lot and people who can’t wfh don’t, because you can wfh in some customer services, admin, low ranking sales/recruitment etc roles. Meanwhile pilots, dentists and surgeons can’t wfh. Even for other areas, starting salaries for entry level roles can be low. New graduates hardly need an additional tax when they’re just starting out and already paying through the nose for their student loans.

I think this is a shitty and unfair proposal, there are too many variables. Having said that, if my company suggested a choice between earning less and going back to the office 5 days a week I would take the pay cut in a heartbeat. My commute is 3 hrs daily.