Deutsche Bank Research: Tax Home Workers 'To Help Those Who Cannot' (bbc.com) 331
An anonymous reader shares a report: Working from home should be taxed to help support workers whose jobs are under threat, a report has suggested. Deutsche Bank Research suggests a tax of 5% of a worker's salary if workers choose to work from home when they are not forced to by the current pandemic. The tax would be paid for by employers and the income generated would be paid to people who cannot work from home. This could earn $48 billion if introduced in the US and would help redress the balance, the bank says. It argues this is only fair, as those who work from home are saving money and not paying into the system like those who go out to work. In the UK, Deutsche Bank calculates the tax would generate a pot of $9.1 billion a year, which could pay out grants of $2,640 a year to low-income workers and those under threat of redundancy "For years we have needed a tax on remote workers," wrote Deutsche Bank strategist Luke Templeman. "Covid has just made it obvious. Quite simply, our economic system is not set up to cope with people who can disconnect themselves from face-to-face society."
How about corporations pay their fair share? (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of taking money from the working class, how about the corporations pay their taxes, no loopholes.
Re: How about corporations pay their fair share? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Even if the upper management do make 100x what the average worker does, it doesn't give you hat much money to extract from them when there are only a few of them. You could take an extra $100 from a million workers or take an extra $10,000,000 from the CEO, and you would end up getting more from the workers.
Re:That's the unfortunate math. Well, except we're (Score:4, Informative)
As soon as my cost of living matches that of a 3rd world country, then by all means call me rich. Until then, it's all relative.
Re:That's the unfortunate math. Well, except we're (Score:4, Insightful)
You can live third-world style in the US for the same cost. (That's how it's calculated, buying power).
What you're really talking about is that you have grown ACCUSTOMED to bring rich.
Which is EXACTLY the same thing as someone in Beverly Hills complaining that they only have a Porsche, because their neighbor has a Bentley.
PS - I'm sorry for being harsh (Score:5, Insightful)
I was about harsh with you. Through the course of my life I've made a lot of mistakes, mistakes to learn from. Sometimes after doing it wrong a few times I learn the lesson and do it right after that. I've been poor, living under a tarp. My neighbors were a tad jealous and I felt like the king of the lot because they didn't have a tarp. They slept in the open air.
I grew up US middle-class. Then homeless. Now I have what some would describe as a small mansion. So I've done some things and been some places. I've learned one thing. I've learned how to how everything you want.
What I've learned is that as long as I'm stuck in the MORE! mentality, it'll never be enough. I get more and want more. I can never be happy that way because there is never enough to satisfy MORE!
I can never earn enough to make MORE happy. Joe Biden damn sure isn't going to give me enough to satisfy the MORE.
The median per capita income is $2,900, that includes both billionaires and the vast majority of people, who sure can't afford to eat Olive Garden all the time. If you're getting twenty times what the average person lives on and that's not enough, no amount will be enough. You can't out more the MORE monster. Trying to just feeds the monster. I tell you this because feeding the MORE monster will only bring you heartache, and I don't want that for you or anyone.
You already make 20 times as much as the average person. If you could satisfy the MORE monster by getting more, he would have been satisfied by now!
And envy, jealousy because someone else feeds the MORE monster more than you do, is just us feeding the monster, with some hate mixes in. That's all it is.
I did learn how to have what you want. That's by wanting what you have. By being grateful that you have 20X-200X as much as most people have. When we're grateful, that shows in our generosity.
It shows when the first check we write each month is to CURE International, so that a kid can have legs, rather than us feeding a want for more fancy clothes to put on our legs.
That's how we get what we want. By wanting what we have, being grateful, and then having LESS because we're giving to those who don't have enough. Giving personally, ourselves, and giving enough that it matters, that our budget feels it. That's how we get happiness. Not from MORE monster.
If you don't think you have enough, check out some of these kids and see who doesn't have what they need. Please, check it out. They are truly suffering.
http://cure.org/ [cure.org]
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If only I had mod points (and hadn't already posted elsewhere).
You're absolutely right: Want is a bottomless pit. It can never be filled. If our happiness is predicated on getting everything we want we are condemning ourselves to unhappiness.
That's not a way I'd choose to live...
Re: How about corporations pay their fair share? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: How about corporations pay their fair share? (Score:3)
Conversely the government could also learn to be more fiscal in its spending. I know that when a family takes a financial hit in income, they are expected to make appropriate adjustments. If that means no more trips and fancy vacations for a while, thats whst you do. You certainly dont expect to continue to go to Monte Carlos after losing 30% in income. Why is the government not expected to do the same? There are plenty of luxury things they can trim in a time of need.
Re: How about corporations pay their fair share? (Score:4, Insightful)
All the lovely social programs cost money and just because revenue went down doesn't mean expenses went down. Now if the social services paid out based on government revenue and went up and down each quarter, that would actually work.
It would be rather chaotic for the people relying on social services but maybe that would be the motivational push to stop relying on the government to take care all your needs.
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Re: How about corporations pay their fair share? (Score:4, Insightful)
You can be against welfare queens and be against corporate welfare. The two are not diametrical positions to hold.
Re: How about corporations pay their fair share? (Score:4, Informative)
I hate how this bogus comparison between household finances and government finances won't die. They are fundamentally different.
Your personal income is mostly fixed. You get a salary, it's the same every month. If you spend more you have less left over, if you spend less you have more in the bank.
Government income is from taxation and investments. When the economy does badly it gets less tax and its investments perform worse, so it gets less money. When the economy does well government income rises.
So for governments saving only makes sense if it isn't dragging the economy down. Cutting things that boost the economy often loses more income than the money saved. Often things that seem like a luxury actually have a decent ROI.
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I agree, taxing me for working from home they can go f*** off with that idea. Be thankful I've managed to keep my job, keep paying my taxes and my mortgage rather than trying to punish me for that?
The problem with "temporary" taxes is they tend to become permanent.
With the Senate likely to have a republican majority or a tie at best, good luck passing a raise in federal income taxes any time soon.
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A tie is as good as a majority. If Dems win both seats in Georgia, then VP Harris will just be the tiebreaker. So the republicans really need to keep the senate or else you know tax increases are coming.
Re:How about corporations pay their fair share? (Score:4, Insightful)
Save me from Republican "tax cuts". The Trump cuts RAISED my taxes.
Re: How about corporations pay their fair share? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sounds like you're problem is with your STATE charging you too much tax.
You're state representatives are the ones most able to address your needs close to home..tell them to lower your taxes to something comparable to other states.
Re: How about corporations pay their fair share? (Score:2)
I thought you were against flat taxes?
Re:How about corporations pay their fair share? (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of taking money from the working class, how about the corporations pay their taxes, no loopholes.
Because taxing corporations is stupid, and evil.
I don't say this because I want to make corporations happy, I say this because corporate taxes are inherently foolish. Corporations are legal fictions that combine the financial resources of many owners and combine and direct the labor of many people. They're not people (silly court rulings aside) and it's dumb to treat them as such.
More concretely, the fact is that corporations never actually pay taxes, only people pay taxes. When you demand cash from a corporation, it's just a cost of doing business and one that they will pass on. They can always pass it on because all of their competitors are subject to the same taxes (well, some are big and smart enough to be able to legally avoid taxes... so taxing corporations does yield a net advantage to megacorps who will always, always be able to arrange to pay less on a percentage basis than their smaller competitors).
Where do they pass it? It varies. Obviously the fans of corporate taxation would love it if the corps would pass it on to their investors. And they could actually do that... but that is the very last place they'll pass it. They might sometimes have to do it, but the core goal of corporations is to maximize shareholder value, so they don't want to let the cost land there. Another place they can and do pass it is to their employees, in the form of lower wages. They also try to pass it to their suppliers, in the form of lower prices paid for whatever they have to buy. And finally, and ultimately, they pass it to their customers, in the form of higher prices.
But what matters less than specifically where they pass it is the fact that it's the corporations themselves who decide how to allocate those costs, subject only to some competitive constraints. It's wrong and foolish of legislators to allow corporate boardrooms to decide where those taxes land. Legislatures should decide who pays the taxes.
Moreover, I said that corporate taxation was evil, not just stupid. How is it evil? Simple: Because to lawmakers and voters it looks like "free money". Voters are happy for lawmakers to tax corporations rather than people because their Big Evil Corps. But as I pointed out above, that's a fiction. All of those taxes do ultimately land on voters, in their roles as customers, employees, suppliers and investors. But the voters never see the amounts they're paying.
By making those taxes invisible to the voters, corporate taxes subvert democracy. They make it impossible for taxpayers to accurately assess how much they're paying for the value they're getting from their government. This is evil.
Corporate tax rates should be zero. Everywhere. Instead, you should tax incomes and capital gains in nice, progressive structures that get the money from the people who can afford it, and not from the people who can't. Note that the people who can't afford it is where corporations most like to pass the taxes, because they're least able to defend themselves.
Note that I'm talking about corporate income taxes. It's fine to tax things that corporations do, rather than their profits (which are really the profits of their shareholders, note). For example, it's fine to levy carbon taxes on corporations that burn fossil fuels. It's fine to tax corporations that operate fleets of vehicles for the miles their vehicles put on the roads. And so on. If the goal is to deter the use of some resource, or to offset the societal impact of some process, that's sensible and good, not stupid and evil.
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because their Big Evil Corp
Er, they're. I'm quite surprised my fingers did that. Bad fingers! You know better!
You tax corporations because if you don't (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the dirty little secrets of our economy is our billionaires are completely broke and in debt up to their eyeballs. They generally report little or not income for tax purposes and instead borrow off their assets. Because they're billionaires they're allowed to borrow at below market rates or very nearly that, meaning they aren't really paying interest. Throw in a few odds and ends tax schemes (like buying a painting for $100,000k, driving up the "value" of that painting to $10,000,000 and then "donating" it to a charity for a $10,000,000 write off) and they pay very, very little.
So we went after the corporations to get the money we needed to have a functioning society. They've been cutting those taxes too by promising guys like you lower taxes (you get a 1% cut, they get a 10% cut, your cut is good for 10 years, theirs is forever). Our society is gradually collapsing.
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Re:How about corporations pay their fair share? (Score:5, Insightful)
I tend to take tohe opposite perspective.
Incorporation is a HUGE legal boon - the power to consolidate wealth (and power) into a legal tolo that enables the accumulation of great personal profit without any risk of personal responsibility. That's the reason they were originally only allowed to be chartered for specific projects and limited time periods before automatically dissolving - a few years at most I believe.
That benefit should not be free - it should come at a substantial ongoing cost to the corporation and their shareholders, far greater than currently in my opinion. And yes, a lot of that cost gets passed on to consumers, but it also makes a corporation far less competitive with non-incorporated businesses that aren't shielded from personal liability, and don't have to pay that tax. And competing with those companies puts an upper limit on how much corporate ta can be passed on to consumers.
Of course, I'd much rather see corporations stripped of their liability-shielding aspects. The people who own a company have ultimate authority over it, and should be ultimately responsible for its actions.
If a corporation is subjected to a huge fine for their crimes, larger than their assets can cover, the shareholders should get to vote whether the company is liquidated before the remainder of the fine is levied on them personally, in proportion to the share they own.
And if a corporation commits a crime that would normally receive a prison sentence - it should get one. That sentence to be served by the shareholders proportional to their holdings. If a Tesla autopilot malfunction kills a bunch of people, enough to warrant a combined 100 year prison sentence for reckless endangerment and manslaughter if it was caused by a bunch of private citizens, then Musk's 21% share should get him a 21 year prison term, while the upper-middle class person owns $40,000 in Tesla stock (0.00001% of the total) has to serve 5 minutes in a minimum security chastisement facility.
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The Supreme Court didn't say corporations are people, they said people didn't lose their rights just because they organized via a corporation. Big difference.
So for example, people who work for the NY Times Corporation retain their right to free speech, despite the corporation spending money to publish it. People who contribute to and do work for the ACLU are still allowed to perform political advocacy, despite the corporate form of their organization.
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You dont appear to understand economics. Companies dont pay taxes. Workers (through lower salaries and benefits) and customers (through higher COGS).
Super Simple example. You have a food truck and you sell grilled cheese sandwiches. Your sandwich materials cost $1.25 and you sell it for $1.50 for 25 cents profit. The govt decides that cows are bad for the environment and start taxing all dairy products STEEPLY. Now each slice of cheese that cost you 25 cents now includes a 25 cent tax for every slice. So n
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Corporations don't pay taxes. They pass the expense off to their customers.
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Corporate taxation is mostly silly. Ultimately humans profit from that money so just raise their taxes instead of infinite cat and mouse games, pushing corporations to move, etc...
Just raise taxes (reasonably, say by 5-10%) on the higher earners, increase capital gains taxes or just make them ordinary income, close more loopholes and simplify the tax system.
Corporations should just pay a simple and fairly low flat tax rate that's easy to enforce and simple to understand. Only issue then is making sure peopl
Seriously? This again? (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't advertise your ignorance of basic business and accounting like that.
A corporation is an artificial person, for legal purposes - it's what allows a business to go into court and sue or by sued, sign contracts, own things, etc. but it's NOT actually a person that gleefully jumps on a bed covered in 100 dollar bills, and swims in expensive liquor, or whatever Scrooge_McDuck/oligarch's_kids fantasy you seem to have, does; a corporation is not actually a living entity that enjoys its money. A corporation i
What about competition? (Score:3)
Of course if you stop all anti-trust law enforcement so there's little or no competition, slash education budgets and make up for it by important cheap hi
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The 1980s called. They want their failed republican economic model back.
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The 1980s called. They want their failed republican economic model back.
Trickle down did not fail. It did exactly what it was designed to do: make the rich richer.
Re: How about corporations pay their fair share? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: How about corporations pay their fair share? (Score:3)
What you have in America is a corprocracy where workers are trained to believe that they are dependent on the executive class and should be thankful to be given a job. Companies are protected and the wealthy take it to the bank because they have you convinced that you need them
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without corporations there is no 'working class', there shouldn't be any corporate taxes at all, corporations do not use money either than to pay out salaries, bonuses, dividends and reinvestment into the economy. Also there shouldn't be any taxes on income or work at all, you get less of what you tax. We don't need to discourage work, we need to encourage it as much as possible.
About 93% of taxes in the US are from corporate taxes, individual income, and payroll taxes. Curious - what are you proposing as an alternative?
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Re:How about corporations pay their fair share? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Well, I don't use money either, except to buy goods, pay bills and taxes, and invest in my own future. Most of that money also gets "reinvested" in the economy.
So why should I pay taxes?
Your idea *might* work if all executives and stockholders were forced to pay a fair percentage of their earnings, but that's not happening either. And then you've got companies that are literally stockpiling cash (Apple, Google, Amazon, etc.). Should they not pay taxes on that money? Or the interest those funds accrue?
Re: How about corporations pay their fair share? (Score:2)
Read the Philip K Dick book called Ubik. In that dystopia you had to pay for everything. Your door to the apartment charged you to open. Your toilet charged you to flush. Several times a day all these micro transactions.
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Your idea *might* work if all executives and stockholders were forced to pay a fair percentage of their earnings, but that's not happening either.
This is where I've ended up. I would be perfectly fine with shifting all corporate taxes to the individuals who profit from the corporation. Other than adjusting the tax rates, the biggest change that would be needed would be closing loopholes that allow individuals to benefit in ways other than direct payments (e.g. personal use of company property).
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For an example of this, see Fringe Benefits Tax [wikipedia.org]
This was enacted in the 80s because the executive classes were evading income tax by having large parts of their salary paid as benefits like private health insurance(*), private school fees for their kids, car leases, mortgage and other loan payments, etc. All tax-free because "it wasn't income, it was a business expense for the employer".
The FBT pretty much killed that bul
Re:How about corporations pay their fair share? (Score:5, Informative)
Without workers there are no corporations.
We can play that silly game all day long...
Re:How about corporations pay their fair share? (Score:5, Interesting)
Those perks can be much more valuable than is reported to the IRS. For example, a company decides that all travel by "C-level" execs must be by private jet. The company pays for the private jet and the execs then pay the cost of the cheapest coach flight to the company. No tax due.
Then, there is the tax dodge used by Steve Jobs and others: no pay, just stock. Jobs never sells the stock, but he can borrow against it, which is not a taxable event. When he dies, the loans have to be repaid, reducing the value of the estate. Hence, there is complete avoidance of income tax.
Then, there is the Mitt Romney tax break. I can't explain this, but because of the way he took income from the hedge fund, his tax rate was far lower than that of a normal employee.
All of these are legal tax strategies. With the reduction in funding for the IRS, illegal tax evasion is much easier.
Dumbest thing I've read all day (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds to me like yet another government wants more money and is trying to justify reasons.
When you're only tool is a hammer... (Score:3)
So the money's got to come from somew
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One guess who one of their marquee customers was?
Blatant money grab (Score:5, Insightful)
WFH should be encouraged during pandemic and afterwards. It is a pure social good, saving energy, reducing pollution and reducing travel.
The idea of forced meatbag gatherings for the sake of forced meatbag gatherings naturally appeals to PHB (and evidently German bureaucrats) but there is no reason to punish those smart enough to do the right thing on their own initiative.
Not only does the central workplace social model merit destruction, its proponents just proved themselves greedy government parasites.
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Naw, it's another corporation that wants the government to take your money so they don't have to put out or be blamed for it.
They got it backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They got it backwards (Score:5, Interesting)
In Finland at least, we do get credit.
Without any itemization, I can get 900 EUR a year if I work from home (or "remotely") for more than 50% of the time. I can get 450 EUR if I work remotely at all. This is known as "workroom tax credit". I can either put that or (with receipts) put in real expenses (like furniture, heating etc), but most people don't bother that.
In addition to that workroom credit, I can also put in stuff like equipment used for work (PC, phone), "professional literature" (including stuff like IEEE memberships), and so on. Obviously you cannot claim these credits if your employer pays them for you.
This has been the case for as long as I've been in working life - since the 90's. at least. So not exactly new in my country.
This proposal is ridiculous. And there's even an easy workaround - I could possibly rent my study to my employer and get reimbursed. They could then claim it as an operating expense. That way I would be going to the "office" that just happens to be located in next to my kitchen.
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I agree, but even more so during the pandemic. Working from home helps reduce contacts.
This seems a bit spurious. (Score:2)
I wonder who is pushing this idea?
About the only thing that you disconnect from when working from home in the states is pouring gallons of fuel into your car every week or so for the privilege of being knocked around by coworkers instead of getting work done during work hours. The only people that ever seem to have a problem with it are managers that have their entire job wrapped up in micromanaging and meetings rather than actually doing something or performing needed duties. While I get that some will a
Tax what you want less of (Score:2)
Out: "People staying home and isolating themselves are silent heroes helping to stop the spread of the the virus even if it taxes their mental health."
In: "People staying home are privileged parasites taking advantage of those who cannot and we must restore equity."
I'm sure no business or employee will decide they would rather keep the 5% instead of remaining part of the epidemic mitigation efforts.
Fuuuuuuuuck that. (Score:4)
not paying into the system
In what way, exactly, am I "not paying into the system" because I work from home? I still spend money at local businesses. I just don't blast as much CO2 into the air since I don't drive daily. So, I should be taxed because I'm... not supporting the petroleum and automotive industries? If I run a business from home, should I be taxed because I'm not paying rent to someone for an office? What if I work for a company that has no local office?
Furthermore, why should I---specifically---be taxed more to pay for workers "under the threat of redundancy"? Maybe they should learn some new skills, like I must constantly do in order to remain relevant in my industry. I propose a tax on Deutsche Bank to pay for their re-education---or, generalizing to the US, a tax on all banks.
It seems that there's no end to the ridiculous ways to take money without any real logic for doing so---other than because it's there for the taking.
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"those who work from home are saving money and not paying into the system like those who go out to work."
What the everloving $%$# is this? They already tax my savings. Now they wanna tax it more, since I'm not traveling to work? Bring this to the US, you Socialist bastards, bring it on. Let's have the fight, the sooner the better.
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Yeah I don't get it either.
Working from home is probably costing me more than going into the office daily. I'm paying for my home electricity use, not my office. I bet I'm paying more per day for electricity usage (A/C in the summer to keep me cool, furnace in the winter to keep warm, lights on, my computer, my printer, kitchen appliances I use to make lunch, etc.) than I would be paying in gas to commute.
Re: Fuuuuuuuuck that. (Score:2)
Yup. Part of the plan to punish you, coerce you into submission, ultimately to blame YOU for their mistakes.
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OK, that's ridiculous. Either you're driving a purpose-built 3-wheel hypermiler 3 minutes to work, your work PC is made by Cray, and your house was built by Trump, or, more likely, you're making so much money that you're paying no attention to how much you're spending on gas. Because gas costs will make all those utilities look like chump change.
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So you turn off everything when you leave for work then?
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In what way, exactly, am I "not paying into the system" because I work from home?
Here's a hint from TFA: "The 5% tax rate will leave them no worse off than if they had chosen to go into the office" In other words: working from home saves you money, so we'll take that from you through an extra tax. It's nothing new either. In NL they figured out years ago that people who own their home with little or no mortgage on it are living essentially rent-free, and save money compared to people who pay rent or have a mortgage. So they came up with the "homeowner's forfait", essentially an inco
Alternatively (Score:2)
Speak up. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Quite simply, our economic system is not set up to cope with people who can disconnect themselves from face-to-face society."
I'm sorry, could you repeat that? For a minute there I thought you were saying some bullshit about how society is vastly unprepared to deal with a lack of face-to-face interactions, as Professional Narcissists play the who-wants-to-be-a-millionare game on this multi-trillion dollar thing we call "Social" Media, engaging with nothing more than a video camera and a binging zombie audience.
This should also become a rather interesting social experiment. Tax hardworking individuals to cover for entire industries that are not doing well? Tell me, should taxpayers keep gambling addiction alive and well? Seems pandemics put a damper on gate revenue, and we can't rely completely on addiction to keep Vegas alive, right? And holy shit, the porn industry. I'm sure their revenue is sucking worse than a N95-masked blowjob. Won't someone think of the walking hormones?
Yeah, I'm being serious. From football to fucking, let me know the formula for justifying entire industries to be sustained through taxation of the working class. I'll get my popcorn.
"For years we have needed a tax on remote workers,"
Well, if you're looking for a way to destroy all of the environmental benefits coming from those who are no longer driving a car 1-2 hours a day doing a pointless commute, along with the crushing effects of operating large buildings to warehouse humans when they could simply work from the same building they live in, you've certainly found it. Yes, instead of rewarding companies, let's punish those bastards who dare choose to work remotely.
Other uses of the tax (Score:2)
I'm assuming this group will want to use the tax for other things too. ... where does it end?
- Use it to pay companies that rent out the buildings -- if more companies go to work from home models there won't be demand for the office space. Maybe we could even pay them to NOT build new buildings.
- Pay all gas stations who aren't selling as much gas anymore
Definition of remote (Score:2)
They would have to narrowly define the definition of "remote".
Even then, a lot of "remote" workers' compensation is already based upon the fact that we work remotely.
Some of us remote workers haven't "disconnected themselves from face-to-face society". Even though I am classified as remote, in a normal year, I am typically on a plane and in a different city every single week and am rarely ever "home" except the weekends. I guess the $60k+ in expenses I racked up last year from flights to hotel to food isn
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They would have to narrowly define the definition of "remote".
Even then, a lot of "remote" workers' compensation is already based upon the fact that we work remotely.
That's a very good example. Another example - I worked for a consultant shop, where I would report to a local office but inevitably always work remotely with other teams. It's pretty obvious the intent of the law wouldn't be to tax me in this case, but the tax has to be coded right for it to be interpreted in the true spirit of the tax.
Unintended consequence (Score:2)
I do not disagree in principle with the concept of taking from those who can, and giving to those who cannot. But this is broken.
1) People should not be eating at restaurants, period. I know it's not forbidden in some places (ex. Texas), but it shouldn't be happening and we should be actively discouraging it. This isn't a WFH thing, this is a COVID containment thing. Restaurants that can do take out, should be. Those that can't should be identifying displaced workers, who can receive benefits that... we sho
I'd be ok with that... (Score:2)
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I would have thought instead of borrowing against the future, we all should have taken a one time tax for 2020 pandemic. If you are in an industry that is shut down, like restaurant, theater, airline, etc the government will pay some amount. Not enough to make you whole but a living wage so you don't need to go into debt just to pay for food, utilities, rent. And non-government essential workers, like grocery clerks, delivery people, etc get a hazard pay bonus. And to pay for that, folks like myself th
TAX Breathing (Score:2)
It will save a few steps.
Saving money ? Where? (Score:2)
One of the stupidest ideas I've heard re covid (Score:2)
This sounds like a really bad idea. Giving incentives to NOT work from home during a pandemic? How well is Germany doing these days?
Deutsche Bank Research? (Score:4, Insightful)
How about we close the research arm of Deutsche Bank and spread those salaries around to help those who can't work from home -- like (main lobby) bank tellers, drive through tellers, janitors, IT staff, and many others? It makes as much sense as taxing work from home employees and giving it to others who can't work from home, forced out due to redundancy, or any other issue. That is just Socialism under the guise of a tax with shiftily crafted words to try and make it not look like Socialism.
Might encourage a return to the office? (Score:2)
On one hand, I can see an argument for this. WFH is kind of a luxury compared to being forced to drag yourself into the office 5 days a week. I thought of this at the beginning of COVID -- there's bound to be a "class war" brewing over those who get to live in WFH luxury vs. those that have to be at work or are being forced back to their worksites by micromanaging Agile collaboration fantasy fanboys. That is, Microsoft or FAANG employees get a privilege that employees of Joe's IT Shop and BBQ Pit don't.
On t
A better idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
How about Deutsche Bank pay back the $354 BILLION in bailout funds it received from the US Government? ... just a thought.
What's forced to? (Score:2)
" Deutsche Bank Research suggests a tax of 5% of a worker's salary if workers choose to work from home when they are not forced to by the current pandemic."
What's "forced to work from home"? If it was safe to take public transport, eat out for lunch, and share office space when almost all employers stubbornly refuse to implement the CDC's recommendations on HVAC changes [cdc.gov] for office buildings, and you are not a higher-risk person with past ailments or age factors that make you more susceptible to COVID-19 then yeah, sure - tax and spend!
Just make sure to not blow all that money on tax consulting and implementing this 'tax reform'.
Better idea. (Score:2)
Unlike most working class people, they don't need all that revenue to pay for their food and housing. And it's very likely that those 5% for Deutsche Bank is more than $9 billion per year.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's increase the taxes Deutsche Bank pays by 5%.
Are they paying any tax? DB is basically bankrupt and being kept afloat by QE and the determination of the German financial sector (AKA, the German government's) absolute determination not to admit that things aren't going well. Large companies rarely pay their share of tax when they are doing well. Deutsche Bank haven't been doing well for years.
Bullshit (Score:3)
More free shit for people who didn't work for it. If someone is disabled or injured, I'm all for government handouts. But I'm sick to death of all this damn socialist sentiment of giving people free shit for nothing. If you want perks of a desk job, do the study time and get the skills necessary to get there. If you smoked weed all through school and have the qualifications necessary to operate a shovel or flip a burger because of your own choices. Then reap what you sow. Again... EVERYONE falls down at some point in their life and needs assistance. But if you made bad life choices that are sticking with you for life. So be it. Teach your kids that you can get in more trouble with a 30 second bad decision than you can get out of for the rest of their life. Grades matter. Work ethic matters. Determination and discipline matter as well as the ability to delay gratification and work toward long term goals. If you can't or did not do these things through your own issues, don't expect me to foot the bill for your lack of these things.
Idea (Score:2)
Why not properly price the services? (Score:3)
I will be frank. The "services" provided by the city are always expensive, but hide the costs from general public.
Take transit here in Bay Area. It would take me more than one hour and $5 to reach office from home. more than 15 minutes of if would be walking. By contrast, it would take less time even with my bike.
Or... I could pay $20 for an Uber ride (which can be reimbursed by my company).
Now things get interesting. In normal times, the bus rides are roughly subsidized at 50%. So it would cost the VTA $10 to transport me, but they would have charged $5 nevertheless. Now with the pandemic, it is probably at least $20 at the moment, so they are much more in red.
So economically it makes more sense to have people take an Uber instead of a semi-crowded bus ride.
But the cities will subsidize the costs of the transport services, and their drivers, but will not give "coupons" to people in need for private taxi service. If the ridership has dropped, we can also drop the bus rides, and furlough the drivers. But that would be realigning with the reality, which is something cities are not willing to do.
Hooray for new tax loopholes! (Score:2)
If they're going to tax me for working from home, I'm just going to declare 1/3rd of my electric bill as a business expense. Then I'll install solar panels, sell ALL my solar energy back to the electric company, buy electricity back at the same price, and still write off the business expense! Bonus tax credits for going solar!
The US tax code can be complicated, but if you look for the loopholes, they'll jump out pretty quick.
Hmm (Score:2, Flamebait)
Strange lack of Democrats commenting on this story, explaining how great taxes are.
Really? (Score:2)
Quite simply, our economic system is not set up to cope with people who can disconnect themselves from face-to-face society."
My bank ATM and grocery/hardware store self-checkout lines would like to have a word with you.
It's all about "equity" (Score:3, Insightful)
Tax incentive against remote working (Score:3)
Let's incentivize commuting to work again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, let's tax all the people staying at home so that they're inclined to start commuting in to work all over again. This is sure to be great for climate change and the environment.
Re: (Score:2)
And be sure they pay the commuting costs, they CANNOT be unjustly enriched by their earnings!!!
Better idea, Noblesse oblige (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Let's incentivize commuting to work again... (Score:5, Informative)
great for public health too.
These *right to profit* tax schemes have got to go. Yes, maybe that tire shop made a lot of money when there were potholes in the road that damaged a lot of tires, but we do NOT have to pay them for lost wages when we fix the potholes.
Re:Let's incentivize commuting to work again... (Score:5, Funny)
By this absurd logic, bakeries everywhere should get a windfall from taxing people who diet, since if they weren't dieting they'd doubtless buy cakes, cupcakes and other sweets by the bushel.
Re:Let's incentivize commuting to work again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Deutsche only seem to consider the *savings* offered by not needing to commute. Homeworking also incurs additional costs that are already acknowledged and taken into account by the existing UK tax system: Additional rental expenditure, heat light and power costs, travel to meetings without the benefit of season ticket savings, office equipment etc etc.
And, fortunately, in the free world if a population considers this sort of tax a deal-breaker, the political opposition can take an alternative view and win elections based on public opinion. Only a bank would think that a tax system is simply 'imposed' upon a country.
Re: (Score:3)
Deutsche only seem to consider the *savings* offered by not needing to commute. Homeworking also incurs additional costs that are already acknowledged and taken into account by the existing UK tax system: Additional rental expenditure, heat light and power costs, travel to meetings without the benefit of season ticket savings, office equipment etc etc.
Okay, some figuring. Humans are around 100 watts. Let's figure that the office equipment is another 100 watts. Add in lighting and extra cooling necessary, 300 watts(I'm just shooting for within an OOM) total. 300 * 8 / 1000 = 2.4kWh/day. Around 600 extra kWh for the year, or $120 at $0.20/kWh(a fairly high rate).
Equipment, everybody I know were provided their equipment(laptops) for working from home.
A bigger concern is that most people need a dedicated work space for stuff like this, which will lead t
Re: (Score:3)
Yes they would.
Krispy Kream expanded to the North Eastern United states, than very shortly the Atkins diet trend came out, with pushed them back into their older areas. While other competitors such as Duncan Donuts offered more than Doughnuts and offered lower carb options, were able to hold out until the fad ended.
That being said, there should be a limit on how much a support for a failing company or a failing industry should be getting. Support from a short term Fad may be a good idea, as if the industr
Re:Let's incentivize commuting to work again... (Score:5, Interesting)
I could never figure out the allure of Krispy Kream donuts.
As they're sold in supermarkets and such, Krispy Kremes are good, but nothing that blows your mind. However, if you have them right after they're made while they're still hot, they're something completely different. I won't often pass by a Krispy Kreme location that has their "hot doughnuts" light on.
Re: Let's incentivize commuting to work again... (Score:2)
Lets hope we dont solve global warming otherwise they might start taxing you for saving the planet. Maybe the solution is downsizing their payroll so they can live within their new means. Sounds a bit like socialism to me. Manufactured jobs for the sake of having jobs. Like a Douglas Adams Telephone sanitizer.
Re: (Score:3)
Then again, I bought computers and monitors and printers and desks. I pay more for electricity and heating. I may not eat out as much, but I spend more at the grocery store and if I do run out to hit a drive-thru at least it's a local store.
Re:Let's incentivize commuting to work again... (Score:5, Insightful)
You wants .gov to micromanage the living/work distance of every single employee in the country (and not even distance, actual commute time!), and then describe that lunacy as not complicated.
Re: (Score:2)
If you take a walk, walk, I'll tax your feet.
Re:Worrying (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Cool Stilwell nick BTW.
EUros tend to be authoritarian and German culture was that long before NSDAP. Freedom from government interference is only cherished in a tiny few areas of the US and that won't last long because humans are frightened cattle begging for regimentation. The world probably SHOULD look like mainland China because humanity deserves it.