Would you Pay Work From Home Tax?

Taxes have always been a pain. We are bound to pay taxes on our hard-earned money, but what if you were asked to pay extra tax because you worked from home during a pandemic. Obviously, it was not your choice, but you had to stop going out for the fear of Covid-19, and companies allowed everyone to work from home.

The proposal of imposing a 5% tax on employees working from home is making rounds!

Deutsche Bank proposed to tax 5% daily tax on all employees working from home. So 5% daily work from home tax?

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Grounds for suggesting 5% daily work from home tax?

They said it’s justified since those working from home end up saving lots of money which they would have spent otherwise. Like transportation, laundry, food, expenses, while getting quality time with their family.

Restructure economy post Covid-19
Will help in balancing the economy through allocating funds from benefitted employees during pandemic, to those who suffered job losses and no work from home options
Will financially strengthen the economy

Why was Work from Home Tax not justified and faced Criticism?

This faced lot of criticism from everyone. This suggestion was counter with the arguments as there was an increase in various other costs for employees working from home. Some of them were

High internet costs,
Purchasing furniture like chairs & tables
Installing power backups at their house,
Those with kids had tough time swapping roles

The benefits and losses had overweighed each other. It’s difficult to say that those working from home really benefitted or suffered losses financially, physically, or emotionally.

Some reported that their working hours stretched by 5 -6 hours without increase in any pay.
Others said that they received only 50-70% of their salaries during pandemic.
Some had to go to office irrespective of the pandemic.
On the other hand, there were some people who reported getting extra allowances to buy furniture, reimbursed monthly internet bills or providing free medical coverage for Covid-19. `

Some companies did benefit due to pandemic & remote work setup: –

Moving all the employees to work from home, saved them lot on electricity, maintenance and administration expenses
Companies benefitted by not providing free or subsidized meals, transport and other facilities to employees
Savings on budgets allocated for team outings/food/celebrations etc.

So the situation across the world was non-standardized & nonlinear. There was no parameter to judge who got the extra bite of the cake, & who got the cherry or if there was someone who did not get any piece of cake at all. Thus proposing to deduct 5% daily tax on all those employees working from home is just not at all justified.

Let us know your thoughts, would it be ok to pay Work From Home Tax???