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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

#91

Post by chrischen »

bombcar wrote: post #43

Expenses such as this are pre-tax, so there is a benefit to the employee for the employer to take (say) $500 a month from salary and designate it as "remote worker expense reimbursement)". You lose less than $500 after-tax and gain $500 cash (untaxed).

Yea it seems like a pro-company benefit because all these companies can start treating all this as pre-tax benefits like the good old free untaxed lunch days. So it seems like they are trying to target remote work companies because the shift to remote work means companies were effectively paying employees post tax for home work environments.

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

#92

Post by ahallock »

tedivm wrote: post #45
pfisherman wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the company and not the employee? I think that the taxpaying public receives benefits from the remote work arrangement; such as less traffic, noise, pollution, and consumption of public resources such as roads.

Lots of cities disagree with you- they want people to return to office because they're worried their down towns are going to collapse due to lack of office workers.

Then so be it. The money will be spent elsewhere.

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

#93

Post by glimshe »

pfisherman wrote: post #7

I like the idea, but not the implementation. I think it should be done as a tax credit for the employee or the company instead. Doing so creates positive incentives for companies to hire remote workers in California. Requiring the company to pay up by force of law disincentivizes companies from hiring remote workers in California. I also think that it would be more equitable since an employee’s home office setup belo…

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

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

#94

Post by kjkjadksj »

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…

It seems reasonable to take whatever square footage is your desk/office space out of your rent and bill that to your employer too.

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

#95

Post by unshavedyak »

Loughla wrote: post #34
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.

Okay? I still don't understand how that means the costs for a private company should shift to the public purse. Please explain.

Because i want a job and not an incentive to not hire me because i don't work locally to their office.

I get frustrated at arguments like this that effectively result in "hey, you need to move to a big city because it's 'better' for you". I don't live in a big city right now, i work remote, and i'm thankful that employers aren't punished and incentivized _not_ to hire me.

I get what you're saying, but we need to look at the ramifications of purity arguments like this. Killing WFH "for my own good" doesn't feel as good as you may think it is.

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

#97

Post by lotsofpulp »

extr wrote: post #3

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

“Headquarters” is irrelevant for state employment laws. If an employee is working within the geographic boundaries of state A, then that employee’s employer is an employer in state A and has to follow all the laws of state A. Same for state taxes.

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

#98

Post by chrischen »

sokoloff wrote: post #87
lm28469 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dif…

So in the end it’s all part of salary. Not tax-exempting just shows how inept the company’s finance team is more than whether or not they value your time.

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

#99

Post by lopkeny12ko »

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 law does not work in your favor.

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

#100

Post by kjkjadksj »

kortilla wrote: post #52
ghaff wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're going to pay for an extra room--which seems very unlikely (or should be) to be reimbursable as opposed to working on the kitchen table--the actual incremental costs seem pretty trivial. Even if you reimburse some pro-rated amount of internet and/or mobile, that's maybe $100/month in the US. ADDED: If you don't have an option to go into an office, a stipend for a co-working space may be reasonable.

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

Or want actually maintain a desk you don’t spend time setting up and putting away each workday. Imagine setting up 2 monitors on the kitchen table each day.
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