Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

nolo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 462 posts

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

#81

Post by malfist »

petercooper wrote: post #41

This is a bit of a tangent but the post references an attitude in both the US and UK tax codes that grinds my gears: If, on the other hand, you feel you are a more effective leader if you stay abreast of developing news, but doing so is not part of your job duties, then subscriptions to various newspapers are not "necessary" for you to do your job and would not be reimbursable. This is a discouraging factor for emplo…

Do you have any evidence that per employee productivity has flatlined?

Going from the growth in GDP, that does not seem to be true.

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

#82

Post by jacobkg »

RationPhantoms wrote: post #25
extr wrote: post #3

Does this apply to workers in CA who work for employers headquartered out of state?

What about workers in other states (NY) working for a CA-based employer?

Unclear. I first learned about this law in an article about employees potentially losing benefits by moving out of state:

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2023-10-31/remote-wor...

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

#83

Post by timtom39 »

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…

My company is largely remote at this point and is moving away from CA for cost/tax reasons. For some portion of companies this is just one more reason to move headquarters.

That being said, I live in a pretty population dense area and my largest cost by far is dedicated home office space. It would be nice for my company to pay for that but it would have also been nice for them to pay for gas for my commute when I had one.

I think CA is likely overplaying their hand. They are not the place of choice for many remote employees (because of taxes) and are trying hard to not be the place of choice for remote companies.

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

#84

Post by munk-a »

fckgw wrote: post #44
tensor wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The consequence is that the company will want to improve efficiency by paying for all the utilities for all employees in a single building. E.g. less WFH.

Encourage WFH and then the company doesn't need to pay for an office building at all! It's almost like businesses have to pay for infrastructure for the employees to be able to do their jobs, whether it's in an office park downtown or the home office in the suburbs.

That'd be totally logical if there wasn't a large amount of investment money tied up in commercial real estate - we've seen a deluge of articles about how detrimental WFH is and many of these are coming from investment firms tied to commercial real estate. We're currently losing the battle of advocating for WFH even though logic is on our side - we don't need to give investors more ammunition for the propaganda mill.

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

#85

Post by dghughes »

driverdan wrote: post #70
troebr wrote: post #16

My biggest expense being remote is that I need an extra room for my office. Besides that, that would probably be heating in winter and electricity, but these are small compared to the cost of an extra room.

Unless you have special equipment that requires the space you don't need an extra room, you want an extra room.

I've got two monitors and a laptop on 1/3 of my computer desk. I'm huddled on a corner literally the point is right where I work. My mouse is 10cm from the desk edge. It sure feels like I need extra room.

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

#87

Post by sokoloff »

lm28469 wrote: post #74
alwaysrunning wrote: post #56

I work 100% remote, have for over a decade, if my employer/contractor won't cover my expenses it tells me exactly what type of employer/company it is. If you can't recognize the value in me working fm home you won't see the value in me as an employee. Hard pass.

Shouldn't it be covered by your salary ? Otherwise why don't companies pay for my gas/tire/shoe soles/&c ?

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 difference between $400/mo and $500/mo), and I have an extra ~$100/mo ($400 - $500/mo * (1 - marginal_tax_rate)), assuming a marginal tax rate (combined fed/state/local) of 40%.

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

#88

Post by timtom39 »

chrischen wrote: post #86

Does this mean independent contractors and small (1-2 people) companies can start deducting these things?

You can already deduct many of these and should be. Talk to an accountant but deduction is usually ratio of usage for work vs personal. Also, keep your personal and work expenses very separate in case there is ever an audit.

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

#89

Post by smileysteve »

chrischen wrote: post #86

Does this mean independent contractors and small (1-2 people) companies can start deducting these things?

Independent contractors and small (self-owned) companies should definitely be claiming the home office expense...

There has not been a point in the last 40 years where they shouldn't be

https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/individuals/home-offi...

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

#90

Post by ModernMech »

lm28469 wrote: post #72
kortilla wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working from the kitchen table doesn’t work if you have a family or really anyone else in the house.

A desk in the bedroom works well enough. You don't "need" an extra room, I've never had an extra room and I've been working from home in all my jobs

You're missing the parent's point. Your setup works for you but what if you and your partner both need to work? Do you both work at your desks in your bedroom? How does that impact your partner's sleep? What if you need to work late but they need to get up early? What happens when they have a meeting when you have a meeting? What if their work involves being on the phone all day?

I think you're looking at this from a solo dev's perspective, where all you do is get up, bang on some keys for 8 hours without anyone else bothering you, and then you're done. Of course that works in a corner of your bedroom where you live alone, but that's not everyone's job and living situation.

Post reply on HN