Bankers want you to be taxed if you work from home

[AWilder]

Choosing to earn a living from home once the pandemic ends is a privilege that you should pay for, according to strategists from Deutsche Bank AG’s research arm.



“Working from home will be part of the ‘new normal’ well after the pandemic has passed,” the strategists led by Luke Templeman wrote in a note. “We argue that remote workers should pay a tax for the privilege.”



The team propose a 5% levy for those who work from home on a regular basis and not because of a government lockdown mandate. Such a measure could raise $48 billion a year in the U.S. and about 16 billion euros ($18.8 billion) in Germany, they say, to fund subsidies for low-income earners and essential workers who are unable to work remotely.

Does anyone trust that this tax would actually subsidize low-income earners?

Deutsche Bank Research undertook a survey to examine the major global shift toward remote work that occurred as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, which may endure as many professionals discover financial, personal and professional benefits of the change. According to the results, more than half of those working remotely want to continue doing so for between two and three days a week even after the health crisis ends. The survey of 800 people was conducted in September.



Working in the comfort of one’s own home saves money on travel, lunch and socializing, according to Deutsche Bank Research, and offers greater job security and flexibility, the strategists said. Yet people who are working remotely are also contributing less to the infrastructure of the economy, potentially extending the slump in national growth, they said.

I'd like to see an analysis of how those savings work in the economy. Are people paying for more expensive vacations, cars, home renovations, investments. I doubt people are just stuffing it under their mattress hoarding it. Just because i'm not buying a bag of chips at the vending machine or going out to lunch doesn't mean my money isn't stimulating the economy in other ways, ways that can be more beneficial to me and possibly strengthen the larger economy.

“That is a big problem for the economy as it has taken decades and centuries to build up the antiquated business and economic infrastructure that supports face-to-face working,” Templeman said.

fixed that for them. Changes like this have been a long time coming and something all businesses should have been planning for regardless of a pandemic forcing it upon them, imo.

The proposed levy would be paid by the employer if they don’t provide their employee with a desk, whereas if the worker decides to stay home based on their own needs, they would be taxed for each day they work remotely, according to Deutsche Bank Research. In the U.S., the strategists calculate, such a tax could pay for a $1,500 grant to the 29 million workers making under $30,000 a year and unable to work from home.

Maybe, just maybe, those people should be paid a wage they can live on?

“It does make sense to support the mass of people who have been suddenly displaced by forces outside their control,” Templeman said. “Those who are lucky enough to be in a position to ‘disconnect’ themselves from the face-to-face economy owe it to them.”

This is not the first disruption to the workforce and will not be the last one. As someone lucky enough to work from home since this started i have certainly reduced my in-store purchasing drastically. But, my delivery and curb-side pickup went from 0% to 90% of my purchases. Meaning that there has been a shift in the way i purchase things not an outright stop to purchasing things. So instead of working a cashier that employee can be re-tasked to filling online orders and working functions in the new normal.

 

[ultramanhyata]

Sounds like communism.

Yeah, the big banks are all about "communism".

The capitalist plutocrat class always has been and always will be the true and ultimate enemy of workers. It's too bad the majority of American working people have been fully indoctrinated into believing otherwise.

 

[koquerelle]

I've been working from home for 25 years (yes, in Canada, but the logic still apply) and I think this is totally fucked up. Working from home is good for the worker and good for society. Less people on the road, less need for office space with inflated rent, etc.

 

[HydraCap3]

Bankers belong in gulags

 

[BearGrounds]

I was thinking the opposite.

Businesses and workers who encourage and participate in remote work should get some sort of carbon tax credit.

Yea, but a "carbon tax"? Fuck all that in the first place. I mean, I know the left really wants one badly, but I'm good.

 

[Rocco Siffredi]

A pro-big bank bail-outer who gave the banks billions while allowing them to evict millions of people is going to be president. The banks must be creaming their Brooks Brothers thinking of new ways to screw over working people.

What's next? Taxing water? Oh wait.

douche bank can fuck off and eat a D...I mean another D and a man sized one at that

 

[D3THRONED]

Yeah fuck off with that nonsense

 

[D 1 Wrestler]

Deutsche Bank probably got the idea from their clients in the Russian mafia.

Or clients like trump who will lose millions in commercial real estate

 

[CantCucktheTuck]

elections have consequences.

 

[moosaev]

A pro-big bank bail-outer who gave the banks billions while allowing them to evict millions of people is going to be president. The banks must be creaming their Brooks Brothers thinking of new ways to screw over working people.

What's next? Taxing water? Oh wait.

How about we tax corporations for the privilege of benefiting from the reduced overheard costs from the remote working format? Selfish corporate bastards always look for ways to off load costs to the average working man/woman.

 

[koquerelle]

douche bank can fuck off and eat a D...I mean another D and a man sized one at that

sideways if possible

 

[Fugazy]

I'm curious for the people that are completely dismissive of this do you have a proposal on how to address the mass disruption and resulting imbalance that is affecting certain industries (which includes the workers employed) due Covid19 and regulations surrounding it? Not all industries and jobs are remote capable. The current economic structure (including pay and incentive scales) were based upon different circumstances.

It's not comfortable to talk about but a sizable portion of the working and middle class are actually currently better off due to the changes brought upon by Covid19 even though others in the same previous income bracket are much worse off. It's not just some rich/corporations that have benefited.

This is a problem I've had with people who fervently push for lockdown restrictions if they are in industries that benefit from or aren't affected by said lockdowns. Would they be as for lockdowns if they say faced the same dilemmas of the restaurant industry and their workers? Would they for it if their remote capable industries had to subsidize non remote capable ones (which is essentially what a tax model like this would be doing)?

If government is imposing sudden regulations that have artificially disrupted the existing economic conditions than I think it's fair consideration that they should also artificially rebalance things as well.

Okay, but, not via taxes.

 

[Fugazy]

I take a deduction for my home office space every year, actually.

How do you take that on an annual basis?

Genuinely curious.

 

[sickc0d3r]

How do you take that on an annual basis?

Genuinely curious.

There's a deduction for it: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/home-office-deduction
I generally just go with the square footage/percentage of my home deduction since I don't have much in they way of other expenses.

 

[panamaican]

How do you take that on an annual basis?

Genuinely curious.

You basically calculate the sq. footage allocated to the office as a percentage of your home sq. footage. Then you take that percentage of your rent/mortgage and that's your deduction. Or you can just calculate it at $5/sq.ft up to 300 sq. ft.

Most tax prep software will walk you through this.

 

[sickc0d3r]

I'm just reading through the code and I think the Trump tax cuts eliminated this deduction for remote employees:
Employees who worked remotely had been able to include expenses from an eligible home office as an unreimbursed employee business expense, which was one of several miscellaneous itemized deductions that was deductible above 2% of their adjusted gross income. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated those deductions starting in the 2018 tax year.

I don't think I even noticed that it wasn't available.

 

[BearGrounds]

How about we tax corporations for the privilege of benefiting from the reduced overheard costs from the remote working format? Selfish corporate bastards always look for ways to off load costs to the average working man/woman.

Hey now, corporations are people too.

 

[nostradumbass]

Gavin Newsom right now

 

[IGIT]

Completely dumb. There are some new issues though with the rise in remote work however. Take Pittsburgh for example. We have a employer payroll tax related to employees working in the city. If we mainly move to remote, the city loses out on that revenue now if the person lives outside of the city lines. Local and state governments are going to have to access different challenges like this and rethink where they tax to make up the shortfalls if necessary. I don’t think you do that with a work from home tax though. There isn’t a reason to penalize that compared to working in an office.

hi Lead,

I think the idea is to raise money to give subsidies for those low income frontline workers whose job description doesn’t give them the ability to stay safe, and stay at home. As described in the article posted by the TS, it seems like a kind of bonus for those folks who have no choice but to endure the risk and head to work.

I would imagine this money would go to people who bag our groceries and teach our children.

I think the sentiment behind the idea is all right, but I would just prefer to see President Biden make the nation’s taxes a bit more progressive; Along with reaching an agreement with the Republican Senate for another round of aid… One that is hopefully aggressively means tested.

- IGIT

 

[Lead]

hi Lead,

I think the idea is to raise money to give subsidies for those low income frontline workers whose job description doesn’t give them the ability to stay safe, and stay at home. As described in the article posted by the TS, it seems like a kind of bonus for those folks who have no choice but to endure the risk and head to work.

I would imagine this money would go to people who bag our groceries and teach our children.

I think the sentiment behind the idea is all right, but I would just prefer to see President Biden make the nation’s taxes a bit more progressive; Along with reaching an agreement with the Republican Senate for another round of aid… One that is hopefully aggressively means tested.

- IGIT

Got it. I mean we do have a pretty progressive tax system at the moment. In terms of aid, that first bill was meant to be fast rather than accurate. Direct checks had to go out fast for it to have its intended purposes and business loans were meant to be an indirect way of having payments reach people while still have the forgiveness piece as the way to look into it after and do the means testing. The better critique I’ve heard about the loans is they favored businesses near the 500 mark more than those with a handful of people. I think it was a decent experiment that could be improved upon in the event this ever happens again.