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Comment by fckgw | Hacker News Reader

The company requiring the worker to do the work should foot the bill, not the taxpayer.

The consequence is that the company will want to improve efficiency by paying for all the utilities for all employees in a single building. E.g. less WFH.

Okay? I still don't understand how that means the costs for a private company should shift to the public purse. Please explain.

Work expenses paid for by an employee are typically tax deductible. This wouldn't be anything new. The expenses paid for by an employer are also tax deductible. This would also not be anything new. The idea isn't that the "cost" is borne by the taxpayer, it is that the employee/employer shouldn't pay a tax on the money they used to produce the income.

Tax deductible (which for most people in the US means nothing today) is different from being reimbursed.

The upthread proposal was "I think it should be done as a tax credit for the employee or the company instead."

That's a proposal to have the cost be borne directly by the taxpayers (a tax credit), not a mere reduction of profit via a valid business expense (a tax deduction).

Tax Deductions, and Tax Credits are very different things and should not be conflated as you have here

> The expenses paid for by an employer are also tax deductible

This is no longer true, at least with regards to employee salaries, but maybe other expenses related to their employment are still deductible. Since the headline calls this a "reimbursement" I would imagine it would be

Because i want a job and not an incentive to not hire me because i don't work locally to their office.

I get frustrated at arguments like this that effectively result in "hey, you need to move to a big city because it's 'better' for you". I don't live in a big city right now, i work remote, and i'm thankful that employers aren't punished and incentivized _not_ to hire me.

I get what you're saying, but we need to look at the ramifications of purity arguments like this. Killing WFH "for my own good" doesn't feel as good as you may think it is.

Encourage WFH and then the company doesn't need to pay for an office building at all! It's almost like businesses have to pay for infrastructure for the employees to be able to do their jobs, whether it's in an office park downtown or the home office in the suburbs.

That'd be totally logical if there wasn't a large amount of investment money tied up in commercial real estate - we've seen a deluge of articles about how detrimental WFH is and many of these are coming from investment firms tied to commercial real estate. We're currently losing the battle of advocating for WFH even though logic is on our side - we don't need to give investors more ammunition for the propaganda mill.

The purpose of it being a tax deduction is because it is a productivity cost. By spending that money, you are producing (hopefully!) something useful for others.

Of course, there are loopholes, this model breaks down when you're talking about deducting a random boat you take clients out for fun. In this case we're talking about remote work.

Why the company and not the employee?

I think that the taxpaying public receives benefits from the remote work arrangement; such as less traffic, noise, pollution, and consumption of public resources such as roads.

Because the company is the one directly receiving the most benefits?

Lots of cities disagree with you- they want people to return to office because they're worried their down towns are going to collapse due to lack of office workers.

They'll still fail because they won't be able to twist employees enough to reach the minimum footfall floor required for the economic activity needed to sustain before times downtowns, but it will be annoying while they try.

Mayor of NYC complains about remote work, but then expands it to non union NYC employees because they can't retain talent [1]. Mayor of Minneapolis complains Target and the local county won't fully RTO, but leadership at those orgs goes "meh" and continues because they want to retain talent [2] [3].

[1] https://www.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/805-23/mayor-ad...

[2] https://kfgo.com/2023/08/26/downtown-businesses-ask-target-t...

[3] https://www.minnpost.com/twin-cities-business/2023/10/why-ar...

Then so be it. The money will be spent elsewhere.

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