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California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

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Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#161

Post by sokoloff »

renewiltord wrote: post #158
sokoloff wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would prefer that my employer consider some of my expenses for working from home to be expenses rather than things that I pay out of my salary. Suppose I have $500/mo in "real" expenses. I'm better off if my company reduces my otherwise-salary by $500/mo and gives me an expense reimbursement for even $400/mo. That $400/mo is non-taxable to me and tax-deductible to the company. So, the company saves $100/mo (the dif…

Yeah, but the rest of us don't want that because we have to pick up the slack in taxes. Personally, I would prefer if I just didn't pay any income taxes. That way, I would save a few hundred thousand and my employer could pay me a hundred thousand less and I'd come out ahead.

You should be opposed to this California law then, because it is codifying that these are required business expenses and eligible for exactly this treatment.

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#162

Post by kkfx »

The "correct compensation" IMO is simply a negotiated fee for the temporary rent of the home office, negotiating if the worker just provide walls or a complete office ready to work.

If he/she provide just the walls it's up to the employer provide and get back the rest. If it's already fully operational it's up to the employee keep it up and running.

For the IT part, it's up to the company IT choosing a fully managed or partially managed setup, case by case.

This might sound complex and long, but it's the way to avoid problems on both sides and a way to mitigate on both sides the "quick&easy" change that allow employers to drop employees as objects, and employees to treat employers like stakeholders in a consulting setup witch is by far the main friction point in full remote work.

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#164

Post by dataflow »

mempko wrote: post #126
glimshe wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your heart is in a good place, but... No more tax complexity, PLEASE. Let's stop using the tax system for encouraging/discouraging behaviors.

That's literally one of the purposes of the tax system. It's to encourage and discourage behavior.

The purpose of the tax system is to generate revenue, I thought.

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#165

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #99

Many young people or those cheering for employee/consumer rights do not seem to understand that this does more net harm than good. For small businesses and startups, this can amount to millions of dollars of additional expenses. Like any economically rational entity, your employer is going to respond by reducing headcount, not hiring in CA anymore, cutting costs in your annual raises, or some combination of the above…

That would be true except the types of companies hiring a lot of remote workers already have a lot of remote workers in California.

California has the luxury of being able to do whatever it wants and companies not really having much of a choice to say - we'll just skip the California market.

It's a bigger market than Germany & Japan.

This would go over less well if a state like Mississippi tried it.

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#167

Post by bombcar »

ghaff wrote: post #136
dmoy wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but uniforms (and related) that are deductible Not after 2017, I think?

Entirely possible. Presumably most people who wear uniforms don't itemize deductions today in any case. The broader point was that people get various random perks that don't get taxed and have various expenses that don't get reimbursed/deducted.

And deductible for the individual is different from the company can buy this and claim it as an expense without having to also account it as salary to the employee.

The pay you get is an expense to the company, and if the company buys and maintains uniforms, likely that is also, but it is not counted as part of your salary even if you get to take the uniforms home.

And self-employment makes it all even more complicated.

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#168

Post by changoplatanero »

TrackerFF wrote: post #61

Some quick napkin math: Say you work 100% remote, 8 hours a day. That's 2080 work hours a year, out of 8760 hours. That means you need to be connected to internet, have electricity, etc. 23.74% of the time - let's round that up to 24% Say a worker pays $600 / year for internet, $2400 for electricity / year, and - dunno - $1500 for your cellphone / year. So that's $4500 / year, and your employer must cover approximate…

I don’t understand why people shouldn’t be allowed to enter into any sort of employment contract that they wish. As long as both parties are well informed then they should be free to agree on what expenses will be covered and what won’t

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#169

Post by Shawnj2 »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #123
Shawnj2 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that point it’s basically another benefit so I don’t think that’s super terrible for employers

Yeah to give some context the average cost that employers pay for health insurance in the USA is $1,251 per month. For the big tech companies it's often higher due to better coverage/location. So this is nothing. Employers will not flinch at this.

I do think salaries will be adjusted a little bit in new listings but 115k vs 116k is not a huge difference and I doubt most medium or large employers will make a stink over reducing people’s pay over this

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#170

Post by devmunchies »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #99

Many young people or those cheering for employee/consumer rights do not seem to understand that this does more net harm than good. For small businesses and startups, this can amount to millions of dollars of additional expenses. Like any economically rational entity, your employer is going to respond by reducing headcount, not hiring in CA anymore, cutting costs in your annual raises, or some combination of the above…

This might give businesses the ammo they need to require the employees to come into the office.
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