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Comment by tristor | Hacker News Reader

I've worked remotely for about 10 years now. I actually don't want my employer covering these expenses. If the employer is covering these expenses it requires me to document the expenses and comply with employer policies related to these expenses. For instance, an employer may mandate what speed of Internet service I am required to have, where I always want the fastest option (gigabit generally) and redundant links. Filing more expense reports in the horrid system made by SAP also is not on my list of things I want to do.

For the ~$1k/yr or so in expenses that I'd get back, I'd rather eat it. This is less than you spend on gas to commute and that's not covered, so frankly I don't care. Just pay me a fair salary with reasonable benefits and stay the fuck out of my personal life/home as an employer.

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I’d go out on a limb here and conjecture that you can still by stuff from your own money without submitting a claim.

If the state requires it to be covered for all employees and it's subject to audit, whether or not I pay for anything additional, I'd still have to follow the policies and provide supporting documentation so my employer would be able to comply with the legal requirement. That's the hassle.

So you don't want more coverage because you don't feel like doing paperwork?

I fail to see the issue. These laws have good faith in them and of you refuse to give paperwork after multiple prompting you more or less waive that coverage. They have to follow the law but they can't force you to hand over your energy bill. Alternatively, they will estimate based on data they already have and throw it into soke benefits account (if one exists).

I also imagine there is a maximum coverage rate to prevent abuse, since existing laws require to pay only a portion based on how much office space you dedicate in your house.

> So you don't want more coverage because you don't feel like doing paperwork?

We're talking about around $85/mo, and in every company I've been at that offered this (voluntarily) I declined, because spending 2-3 hours filling out paperwork for $85 is not a good deal. It's an annoyance. If it's legally mandated, now it's a mandated annoyance.

You can't, that would be a huge legal liability for the company.

Specifically, you can as an individual, but the company would be obligated to enact policies that require its employees to document everything to shield itself from liability, the likely end result is that not documenting such things could be grounds for termination.

The article talks explicitly about "a reasonable percentage of" bills. So I think it can totally cover the case where you want a top-notch Internet connection for big bucks and they reimburse you up to N dollars per month.

Is it typical that gas for commute is not covered? In The Netherlands that's a government regulation as well, never realised that might be uncommon.

I've never heard of anyone in the US having an employer cover their gas in a non-company owned vehicle.

To be clear, it's common for IRS mileage reimbursement rates to apply for driving for other than commutes (e.g. to drive to the airport or a customer site)--but not for a daily commute.

I can't edit my original comment anymore, but I was wrong. It's not government mandated, just regulated in the sense that there's an income tax break for any travel compensation up to 21ct per km. Most unionized (CAO) employers follow this exactly, and even non-union employers like my own follow this as far as I know.

Fun thing is that it's the same amount regardless of the mode of travel, so if you take your bike to work it's an extra $4/hr tax free income ;)

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