I am using less public infrastructure.. decongesting the roads, saving the environment and paying a higher electricity bill by being at home.
I should be getting a tax break.
I should be getting a tax break.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
That’s a monumentally dumb and enormously unfair suggestion for a tax.
In Ireland we can claim tax back on stuff like electricity bills if our employer confirms we’ve been shifted to home working this year.
Where I work people who earn below a very generous threshold are getting a one off £400 (or 400 in local currency) to pay for the increased utility bills. Nice touch.
Can imagine the company is saving millions in not having to heat offices, provide drinks/snacks, decreased cleaning etc so good they are giving something back.
You can claim tax relief here on £6 a week, and they’re letting people claim for a full year this tax year regardless of how much they’ve actually had to work from home.
Yea that’s cool. We’ve all been given a flat £25 per month tax free WFH allowance.
The idea of imposing a 5% per day tax on WFH is beyond stupid.
That is a comically stupid idea.
A tiny bit of decent news. The govt here has now changed its mind about the English family on a yacht in Tahiti who tragically lost their sons life in an accident who wanted to come to NZ to sell their yacht. They are now given the all clear to sail to NZ and sell their yacht here.
I guess there's a disproportionate number of people working from home here so the responses are the usual reaction of "I don't want to pay more tax for doing something I like".
To me there's two sides of the story. Any tax that is designed to disincentivise people to work from home to "save the city" is short sighted and likely to piss off home workers without solving the core problem. Buying a plaster to stick on a gaping wound is a terrible waste of (public) money, especially if it just creates another pain point.
On the other hand the move to home working is increasing income inequality and is accelerating the tendency for people to live in bubbles, both of which inevitably leads us further down a path of a more fractured society, which at a point becomes an unstable society. That's without even getting into the ethics of it.
So I do think we need a set of serious policies to fix the problems but any policy motivated by that knee jerk instinct to save the city will only make things worse. This seemingly underpins their entire logic and it's hardly a self justifying statement:
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Excellent news.
As if we needed proof that The Daily Heil are a bunch of cnuts. As if a headache or a mild fever would be a serious enough side effect to matter.
https://news.google.com/articles/CA...zuOICzCZ4ocDMPy1pwY?hl=en-AU&gl=AU&ceid=AU:en
https://news.google.com/articles/CA...zuOICzCZ4ocDMPy1pwY?hl=en-AU&gl=AU&ceid=AU:en
If thats the only side effects they could find it sounds like great news.
shitty paper.
That just shows it works. The body raises its temperature and all the rest to fight what it thinks is a Covid infection.
feck me, they always find a way dont they, marginally better off by working at home? Cant have that! GIVE IT BACK PEASANT! How about taxing scumbag bankers bonuses at a higher rate, clamping down on tax avoidance by the super wealthy and multibillion dollar corporations? Nah feck it, lets squeeze a few more quid from joe bloggs, he always eats a shit sandwich without complaint.
Is that as well as already paying more in electricity and heating? Perhaps the savings made by employers should go towards more tax.
That's one of the options listed in the report, but The Guardian being The Guardian, that headline doesn't stir up the Islington activists to the same degree.
Fair enough.
They could save the city by repurposing some of those massive office buildings to providing much needed apartments and community facilities.
Welcome to Tory 101
Aint that the truth
That's good news for them, if you can even have good news in their situation. I still don't understand why they weren't allowed to dock in NZ and be tested before they were allowed to leave their boat. They weren't going to have Covid, having been stuck at sea for weeks. It seemed very inhumane to leave them in limbo.
It was an awful initial decision, completely lacked in logic and humanity. Nobody here could understand it. They got told they had approval on Nov. 2nd so hopefully they are already on their way to NZ and maybe might get home to England by xmas.
Most likely true sadly but important to point out that the report came from Deutsche Bank, not from some British thinktank. Which I think some people (not you) are missing a bit in their replies.
I guess I should have known the responses I'd get on here considering, like you said, the heavily leaning of posters on here who can work from home are probably not going to be the biggest fans. Or seemingly from some of the criticism, read the article properly.I'm not too sure where this criticism of save the city is coming from.....do people think the city workers (bankers, consultants etc) are the targets of this? Or at real risk of losing their jobs compared to others?
I totally agree with you that the move to home working for many will exacerbate income inequalities even more...and probably health inequalities too.
Doesn't mean that the tax increase couldn't come at least partially or fully from the employer (which it mentions) or by taxing bonuses etc etc.
But personally, even though I can't work from home for the most part, I'm perfectly happy to pay a bit more in tax to support those who are likely struggling significantly right now, as part of a raft of other measures too. I don't want society to become even more unequal.
Well, those who are currently working from home are probably already in the higher percentile of earners, it's mostly qualified professionals doing it; IT, accounting, finance, law etc. Chances are they (we) will be the ones getting taxed to the hilt to pay for the bill when it's all over anyway so may as well get a start on it early eh?
I also probably wouldn't mind? I mean I do save a bloody fortune working from home.
I also probably wouldn't mind? I mean I do save a bloody fortune working from home.
I read the article just fine thanks. The article only mentions employers that won’t provide a desk. Where is the idea that people working from home aren’t also struggling financially?
I'm not too sure where this criticism of save the city is coming from.....do people think the city workers (bankers, consultants etc) are the targets of this? Or at real risk of losing their jobs compared to others?
I totally agree with you that the move to home working for many will exacerbate income inequalities even more...and probably health inequalities too.
Doesn't mean that the tax increase couldn't come at least partially or fully from the employer (which it mentions) or by taxing bonuses etc etc.
But personally, even though I can't work from home for the most part, I'm perfectly happy to pay a bit more in tax to support those who are likely struggling significantly right now, as part of a raft of other measures too. I don't want society to become even more unequal.
US slowly approaching 2k deaths a day.
Not sure there's much to have a go at them at really, not 'China's' fault they've got these dodgy bats hiding out in caves. Food hygene standards at these wet markets etc they obviously have an issue with but not sure how much evidence there is to show they were responsible for this outbreak. The first documented spreader event came from one but the virus didn't originate there.
Apart from the Wuhan goveners initial reaction, China appared to be completely transparent from early January with daily journals being posted by their medical/scientific communities, keeping the world informed of developments.
They dealt with the outbreak themselves ridiculously well and laid out the blueprint for the rest of the world on how to deal with it long before most western countries recorded their first case. They've also done an awful lot to help other countries with equipment and personnel.
The levels of incompetence in most western countries to deal with it, mostly notably US/UK, are absolutely off the charts. There will continue to be huge levels of propaganda focused against China in the coming years just because the cnuts in our governments need to divert the blame. Gotta be wary of everything we hear.
Have the Chinese Super League on now and it's amazing to see a sporting event with fans packed together with little to no masks. I guess restricting freedoms and forcing quarantine works. We are literally killing each other for our freedoms.
I agree with everything you wrote.
Also to add - given what we know now about how this spreads, there is no way in hell they would have been able to keep it localized even if there was not for the early silencing.
To say China has been completely transparent since January is wrong. They knew it was spreading person to person for a long time (obviously - look how infectious it is, doctors becoming ill etc). They were hoovering up PPE whilst downplaying the disease and decrying other nations for imposing travel restrictions on China (ironically now they have largely shut their own borders). Their reporting of the death toll looks implausibly low given what we saw of their hospitals prior to lockdown. And now their own pandemic is under control is there any sign that they're allowing international scrutiny of ground zero in Wuhan? Not to mention the propaganda that covid didn't start in China, it was only discovered there.
And let's not pretend that it was not common knowledge in the scientific community that the next zoonotic disease pandemic disease would come out of China most likely. There is a problem with intensive rural farming of animals as well as wet markets.
Where they have been good is that they used the right template to deal with it (drive incidence very low, keep it there and employ mass testing). It helps that the population is more willing to accept sacrifices and conform to things like wearing masks. Whereas in the west many people are happy for someone else to die as long as they have their "freedoms'.
I hadn't thought to claim for tax relief actually, think I'll put that claim in later today.
This WFH tax thing. Isn't it because they're going to lose alot of money from businesses not using buildings and paying tax on that kinda stuff?
Obviously taxing the worker themself isn't great, but taxing the employer wouldn't work either as they'd just make everyone to back to the office.
Can't wait till my tax shoots up next year anyway. Already started stocking up on supernoodles for when I can no longer afford to eat properly.
Obviously taxing the worker themself isn't great, but taxing the employer wouldn't work either as they'd just make everyone to back to the office.
Can't wait till my tax shoots up next year anyway. Already started stocking up on supernoodles for when I can no longer afford to eat properly.
It's a think tank suggestion that won't see the light of day. I'm not even convinced it would be legal or enforceable.
The biggest loser of the flight away from offices is going to be commercial property funds and pensions. They've all been closed most of the year and many were before that. Just for retail investors alone there's about 14 billion sat suspended. It'll be mayhem when they open.
For all the doom and gloom i think cheaper commercial property will become a boost for many businesses. It may also end up revitalising local communities.
i wonder about the longer term impact of a 'new normal' that involves a large degree of working from home. doesn't this in theory open up say the London job market to anyone in the entire UK? maybe companies will prefer paying £15k less for someone living in Belfast rather than someone who happens to live in Greater London? we've already heard of people choosing to move away from central london to further afield to get larger properties. will be interesting to see what the knock on medium term effects once the new normal starts to settle.
Or £50k less for someone living in the Philippines or India. A lot of people are feeling positive about home working in the long term but they could be turkeys getting excited about Christmas.
A lot of folk seem to think it's only relatively unskilled jobs at risk, as call centres are the first thing that spring to mind, but I suspect it will be much bigger than that. Accounting, education, architecture, a whole chunk of things. If it can be done in a converted bedroom in some leafy English suburb it can be done in Mumbai as well.
33,470 confirmed cases in the UK today. Highest since start of pandemic.
Downing Street about to go live.
Wowzers!
Shit! Thought the UK was plateauing out.