Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
A 5 per cent ‘working from home’ tax should be imposed, according to a new report from Deutsche Bank.
The tax itself would be paid by the employer if the employer does not provide a worker with a permanent desk. If it does, and the staff member chooses to work from home, the employee would pay the tax out of their salary for each day they work from home. For someone on a £35,000 salary, it works out at around £7 a day.
Deutsche Bank’s report says that the income from this tax would be paid to people who can’t do their jobs from home. The banking giant points out that since those working from home, these employees are saving money and taking less risk by not going to work, so a tax would help to redress the balance.
It calculates that the tax would generate an income of £6.9bn a year in the UK. This in turn could pay out grants of £2,000 to low-income workers and those who are under threat of redundancy.
The report is part of the bank’s ‘Konzept’, an ongoing project to spark debate around important topics.
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