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Comment by barry-cotter | Hacker News Reader

Benefits are taxed. If you get free housing you'll get taxed on the difference between market rate and the amount you're paying. If that difference is 100% you'll get taxed based on teh full market value of your "free" housing. And if they fire you you'll have to deal with two of the top ten most stressful life experiences at once.

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It's just a matter of branding and wording really. =)

"Free housing for employees" vs "A private lockable office with a really comfy sofa and a private fridge wink wink nudge nudge"

I know as a matter of fact that this does not work. This is regularly checked and municipalities are on top of it. When I worked at FAANG the company was fairly direct about this, with the internal communication about this being in the form of ‘we don’t care, but please don’t do it because y’all got caught several times and it’s a massive fine every time’.

>I know as a matter of fact that this does not work. This is regularly checked and municipalities are on top of it.

Seriously? Are municipal employees really staking out FAANG offices to bust people living in them? This seems like a weird sense of priorities to me.

Have to second this, I've heard far more stories of inspectors (as rarely as they come) ignoring an obvious loft in an improperly zoned area.

Tax won't necessarily be an issue, the total net cost of my housing can still be cheaper than if I pay it myself.

>And if they fire you you'll have to deal with two of the top ten most stressful life experiences at once

Of course but few thing could be done by the company to minimize the stress. This cons is not significant enough for me.

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