Tax working from home 'to support vulnerable jobs' – Deutsche Bank • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by danesparza » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 1:06 PM UTC

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #56

ThePhysicist wrote: post #31

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…

So perhaps the system was broken (and punative measures against remote workers aren't going to fix it).

God forbid we question our banking system or other broken systems that have been brought into the light of day since COVID started.

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

#62

Post by darkerside » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 1:07 PM UTC

darkerside wrote: post #58

The macroeconomics of this make sense, but the behavioral impacts of this could be damaging. For that reason, I'd rather see this framed as a tax credit for essential workers. It ends up being similar, but framed as a positive reinforcement instead of a negative punishment.

Another thought, why not tax internet traffic instead? In a world where internet is driven by natural resources, be they spectrum, cables, or other, it makes sense to internalize the costs of those resources to the system.

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

#63

Post by daniellarusso » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 1:07 PM UTC

torben-friis wrote: post #35

This sounds like a horrible idea. Home work improves many peoples mental state, reduces time spent at work (if you count commutes), people's footprint in terms of pollution and allow for the redistribution of people that were clustered in big cities under asfixiating rent/home owning costs. Why on earth would we disincentivize it? >By working from home, people aren't paying for public transport or eating out at resta…

Preserve the status quo at all costs.

Is there a term for that?

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

#64

Post by dotdi » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 1:08 PM UTC

This reminds me of Shell (the oil giant, who had allegedly known for decades that they are pushing towards an environmental catastrophe but hid it actively for $$$) tweeting

> What are you willing to change to help reduce emissions? #EnergyDebate

I'm going to sound like a total commie, which I'm not, but when are people going to get fed up with companies/persons earning billions telling us that WE need to be paid less so that THEY don't loose money or are paid more.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

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

#65

Post by robotmay » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 1:08 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #48

Might Deutsche Bank be sitting on a non performing commercial real estate portfolio? Alan Sugar (British Trump equivalent) similarly issued a demand for people to "get their asses back in the office" after telling everybody his commercial real estate portfolio wasn't performing: https://www.standard.co.uk/business/lord-sugar-offices-prope... https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/03/lord-alan-sugar-calls-on-gove...

Hah yes this is definitely a part of it. Remote working spreads money around the country rather than concentrating it in expensive city-centres where the rich have stockpiled property.

Good riddance to them.

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

#66

Post by daniellarusso » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #57

amf12 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a bit like taxing cyclists 10 % of their income because they don't support the car industry... Good analogy. But their argument is even worse because they don't look at the other benefits of remote work on the economy.

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

Beyond a degree, what qualifications are needed to be an economist?

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

#67

Post by amadeuspagel » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

I cringe every time I see a plan of the form "tax x to help y", with some supposed relation between x and y as justification. Is x something we want to discourage? Does y need help the most? These questions are completely unrelated. If x is something we want to discourage, we should tax it, then think about how to best spend the money. If y needs help the most we should help, then think about whether to spend less on other things, raise taxes or go further into debt.

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

#68

Post by danesparza » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

silvester23 wrote: post #54

svrtknst wrote: post #34

Counterpoint: Tax employers additionally, since they now face lower rent and spend less on office supplies and coffee. Or, hell, tax high-income earners. For instance bank executives working for shady banks

In the article, it says > The tax would be paid for by employers and the income generated would be paid to people who can't do their jobs from home. But somehow nobody in this thread seems to have read that sentence.

You act like this is the linchpin of the article.

It's not.

It's the fact that a BANK is suggesting that CUSTOMERS take care of THE BANK's problems.

Their piss-poor planning is not my emergency. And if it IS my emergency, you can bet that additional taxes will not be on the table as a fix. Getting rid of the banking system and replacing it with something that works WILL be on the table, though.

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

#69

Post by ShaneMcGowan » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

One could argue that since these services are no longer needed or as heavily utilized due to people being able to work from home, then the service as is isn't feasible anymore and will need to change, rather than taxing those who are no longer interested in partaking in this service.

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

#70

Post by black_puppydog » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 1:11 PM UTC

fennecfoxen wrote: post #50

black_puppydog wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or those who gained a lot from the crisis? It's not like they were planning for a pandemic; for e.g. zoom this was simply a windfall. Why not tax that?

I beg you explain. First of all, what are you going to tax? Sales / VAT tax? Revenues? Profits? Why is the existing VAT inadequate for this? Is the new tax just going forward, or is it retroactive? How much is Germany specifically supposed to tax NASDAQ:ZM, incorporated in the US? Why just tax Zoom — Cisco, Google, and others have meeting products too (I'm stuck on WebEx, eww) so why should they be treated differentl…

Frankly I'd be fine with simply stepping up the game against tax evasion. If corporations paid their fair share to begin with, we'd have a lot less issues like this to begin with.

In terms of concretely for this year (and not being a fiscal expert, just some rando on the web, as I'm sure you're aware) I see governments giving out help to people/companies in need, based on a comparison of current incomes/profits and last year's income in the same month. Not that that's perfect, but if it is workable, I don't see why this couldn't be generalized to the case where companies (or people, but that's probably a fringe) make significantly more profit now than last year around this time. Given the broad economic problems, that should separate out the winners of the crisis quite neatly. Paired with possibility for individual recourse, that should bring in some decent tax revenue and leave room for people who feel their increase in earnings is nothing to do with the pandemic. Of course, those people would have to make the effort to defend that case, and might also stand in the "court" of public opinion as a result.

Apart from that, I don't see why it seems a foregone conclusion that e.g. rent will have to be paid in full. That basically says "we guarantee that whatever happens, people who are well enough off to own more property than they inhabit themselves will not bear the consequences." I don't think as a hard-and-fast rule that's fair either. Because the inversion of that is "whatever happens, we'll have it be paid by those who have the least already."