Live data from Hacker News

Tax working from home 'to support vulnerable jobs' – Deutsche Bank

bbc.co.uk

101–110 of 201 posts

Re: Tax working from home 'to support vulnerable jobs' – Deutsche Bank

#101

Wow, so because I save myself and my employer money by not mindlessly commuting to work everyday I should pay an extra tax? That's one of the most ridiculous ideas I've heard so far. It's a bit like taxing cyclists 10 % of their income because they don't support the car industry...

I think the point they're trying to make is that the money you and your employer are saving is not going into the economy as it was before, which is having a net-negative effect overall. > Quite simply, our economic system is not set up to cope with people who can disconnect themselves from face-to-face society. So it's plausible that there is actually a problem here with the very sudden change of workforce distribut…

Every business works constantly to reduce cost. How is this cost-saving any different from any other? Should a business that finds a cheaper vendor pay extra tax? And why does the money earned by remote workers, not somehow 'going into the economy'? That's a stretch.

Re: Tax working from home 'to support vulnerable jobs' – Deutsche Bank

#102
My first gut reaction is/was: “Wait what no I lost my job in march due to political shenanigans in civil/public agency, got out with server bouts of panic attack, 60 pounds heavier and lifeless, I managed to get re-hired in a fucking pandemic and you want to tax me more because you wasted some of the money you already took from me in policies that didn't replenish masks and respirators stock and I hear stock markets are skyrocketing and Bezos&co are richer than before the crisis and you want to tax the people who are keeping their head out of the water instead of going for once after the so-symbolic GAFA and others and the Deutsche Bank's plan is tax me more instead of helping fight global financial fraud ?! The Deutsche Bank ? On a BBC website, from a country that first denied covid then went the herd immunity foolish path ? Give them more money to build such plans ? To the people who brought us Brexit ?!" /s

I need to calm down a bit before reading the article :D but at least you have the gut/first reaction of a random joe to reading such headlines.

Re: Tax working from home 'to support vulnerable jobs' – Deutsche Bank

#103
> By working from home, people aren't paying for public transport or eating out at restaurants near their places of work, while expensive offices remain virtually empty.

If there's a large-scale shift to working from home, I'd imagine you'd see an eventual rebalancing of cities & suburbans in both directions:

— more cafés and restaurants in suburban commuter towns or residential areas that were previously ghost towns during the day. (Personally, if there were more cafés and restaurants around my home (and we weren't in the middle of a lockdown) I'd be happy to frequent those while WFH to get out of the house & as a change of scene.)

— if offices do end up vacant longer-term, a conversion of some of this 'down town' space to residential.

In the interim, you'd probably want to support people and businesses along the way, but I don't think introducing taxes to chivvy people back to the existing (old?) status quo is the way forward out of all this. This could be an opportunity to make city centres a lot more livable.

On the issue of public transport — at least here in London, the network was struggling for funding even before the pandemic nevermind now. I think it's time to bite the bullet and make public transport free at the point of use — I'd happily pay an extra tax for that and would go some way to reducing day-to-day expenditure of people who depend on it most. Plus (again, when we're back to normal), it may encourage more people to reduce single-passenger car use if they're already paying for the train/bus.

Re: Tax working from home 'to support vulnerable jobs' – Deutsche Bank

#105
Of course if we removed the "but what about the jobs, can I have a bailout" option then firms would have to get back to competing for business rather than bailouts.

We need an alternative job that people always have the option to take. No need to tax anybody to create that

New paper on the approach today: http://www.fullemployment.net/publications/wp/2020/wp_20_06....

Re: Tax working from home 'to support vulnerable jobs' – Deutsche Bank

#106

There will be a bill to pay for lockdowns and I expect tax rises are looming but this policy is bonkers. If some jobs have become zombified because working practices have changed then those jobs need to go. We should support those people through the transition but trying to prop up unviable businesses isn't a sensible policy. Coming out of this period should be a period of creative destruction but it seems to me curr…

"There will be a bill to pay for lockdowns"

Why will there be a bill? The cost has already been paid by definition in lost output.

And when those that have saved more and borrowed less change their position taxes will automatically rise because tax is a ratio, not a fixed amount. The more activity there is, the more tax arises.

Savings are a store of taxation as well as value.

Re: Tax working from home 'to support vulnerable jobs' – Deutsche Bank

#107
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worker always pays all tax. If you get X and pay Y tax and employer also pay Z tax, the reality is that you make X+Y+Z and pay Y+Z of tax, it just happens that Z is attributed to the employer, but it makes no difference. So if the Z increases, then X and Y will decrease or if X and Y stays the same, it only means you are now making more, but the difference goes to the state purse. Now if the increase goes beyond the…

If the employer finds a way not to pay Z - do they give it to you? (No they don’t)

No, you just don't pay it and that means you save.

Re: Tax working from home 'to support vulnerable jobs' – Deutsche Bank

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is scary that so many so called economists are strangers to the concept of opportunity cost...

It's much more likely that this comes from a PR team aiming to achieve commercial goals of Deutsche Bank.

So true.

Re: Tax working from home 'to support vulnerable jobs' – Deutsche Bank

#109
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can't help but penalize change. Work from home is a change that is resulting in much lower tax revenue, and they need new income streams to make up for it. "It argues this is only fair, as those who work from home are saving money and not paying into the system like those who go out to work." They simply need more people to "pay into the system" again.

Maybe they should consider taxing the office space since businesses do not need to pay for it when most of their staff works from home. Taxation of WFH people is like taxing vegetarians because the tax revenue from sugar tax is too low. Edit: Also fuck banks, of course their employees suggest taxing the middle class.

>Taxation of WFH people is like taxing vegetarians because the tax revenue from sugar tax is too low.

How is sugar consumption related to meat eating?

Re: Tax working from home 'to support vulnerable jobs' – Deutsche Bank

#110
Its quite unusual to have so witty comments on this forum.

I believe a lot have been said here and it reveals how the so called economist at DB thinks.

On my side,I would just like to add a reference to F.Bastia

And its well known sophism:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/frederic-bastiat.asp#:~....

Post reply on HN