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Comment by kmclean | Hacker News Reader

Unnecessary commuting should always be included in working hours and expensed.

Are you going to expense your lunch breakfast dinner and rent as well? You need all those as well in order to work. If you work from home are you going to expense your electricity? Where is the line?

No, just unnecessary commuting.

You have discovered another road to feudalism.

When people cast wishes I’d like them to imagine they are holding a monkey’s paw whilst doing so.

The talk should be opened either way. Companies are far too eager to put high RE prices / high commuting costs / long commutes onto people, but no one is asking "where is the line?" when the roles are reversed.

God forbid we play a few things by ear and see what happens.

You shouldn’t be able to expense things you would need if you weren’t working as well.

> If you work from home are you going to expense your electricity?

Funnily enough, yes.

A very large group of countries have introduced 'teleworking' legislation post-covid, where employers are legally obliged to pay allowances to employees per day of remote work (specifically to offset electricity and internet expenses).

Actually in Spain you must get a plus by law to cover electricity expenses when working from home.

Japanese companies often include both a commuting allowance and a housing allowance as distinct components of your pay; neither is counted as income for the purposes of taxation. Meals at company cafeterias are typically not free (though some places are), but typically very reasonable -- e.g. 300 JPY for curry-rice etc.

Nit: That's true for taxation, but counted for social insurance/pension fee. Latter is big for lower income workers.

Yes. My employer (US fintech) gives me a daily meal stipend while working remotely, as well as covers my mobile phone, internet, and a portion to cover my home office. This excludes the annual equipment, desk, and chair stipend I receive.

This was all outlined in our remote handbook provided with my offer letter.

Congratulations! Honestly.

I share so others will advocate for this at scale. It’s not some sort of impossible or unreasonable request.

It used to be that meals were tax deductible (which is why Google offered meals) but that got restricted. If a company offers a meal stipend how does that work? Is it just bonus compensation but ear marked for food only?

Depends on the company and how they're paying it out. I've seen food services where a daily credit is issued to your service account (funded by the org), I've seen it as bonus comp, etc. Whichever mechanism is used is usually some sort of crude optimization attempt for what's best for the org and the employee with whatever services and regulatory framework they're working with (wrt to taxes).

Are you in Europe?

I am a US citizen residing in the US with the intent to expatriate to Europe on a remote worker visa, which my employer will support.

A fair line would be that you're compensated for things you do that you otherwise wouldn't do. You'd still eat, but many companies do compensate their employees for their meals during working hours.

Yeah. Businesses owe citizens. People owe nothing to businesses.

What about the extra space for a home office?

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