For many people such a lifestyle is not what they really want.
I can assure you it was wanted 
Who do you think chooses (chooses, not buys) a house? The man or the woman? Ask any estate agent 
My present place is much smaller, and we grow lots of veg.
Some companies I have worked for actually paid an allowance towards electricity and internet costs whenever they required you to work from home (being on-call for example).
Yes there are serious gotchas to watch here. In the UK, for example, the test is whether any one room is used exclusively for a business. If it is, and they find out, you will get his for capital gains tax when the house is sold. OTOH everyone doing this would like to charge some % of the house costs to the business… but the Revenue will see this if they do an audit, and guess who assesses you for tax? Obviously every country must have a similar regulation otherwise every small business would be run from a private house
£12/m is not a lot. OTOH some people will be working as contractors, and they can charge some larger amount of household costs against their profits, while submitting a single monthly invoice to their “employer”.
WFH works very well if you give it time for people to get used to it. It needs changes and organisation at home. Kids and spouses need to know you are just as gone while you work as if you are at the office .
As for those who think it’s to the beach there are lots of ways to prevent that.
The big growth area is “spying” software which takes regular screenshots of your PC etc and sends them back to your employer
The challenge for most people has not been that they had to work from home but rather that schools and kindergardens have been shut down as well. Although many people complained about the stress of working from home – if they had to come to an office their challenge had even been much bigger (at least for the dual income couples which is the norm today).
Peter wrote:
In the UK, for example, the test is whether any one room is used exclusively for a business.
Same in Germany – formally you need a room absolutely dedicated to business. Even storing the binder with the bank statements from your personal account would prevent the cost of this room to be tax protected.
Therefore if they really check for it, German equivalent of IRS would actually expect you to have two office type rooms in your home as they do not believe that you don’t even have a “private” printer somewhere. Practically spoken, however, such things are really actually checked if they are not after you for more broad tax avoidance where this is the icing on the cake.
Peter wrote:
The big growth area is “spying” software which takes regular screenshots of your PC etc and sends them back to your employer
I spent a bit of time working for a large chip maker and they installed a piece of software on everyone’s work computer that logged every key stroke, click, and open window. This of course was all for ergonomics so the computer could tell you to take a break at the appropriate times
I think there are two different issues here – one is use of part of your house for a business (your own business) which obviously has implications around how you arrange your own tax affairs and that of the business, with the potential that the house might be considered (in part) a commerical property.
The other is use of a space in your house (WFH) as an employee in someone else’s business, usually a large multinational, where you are the only person who works in that space (i.e. just a personal office, they have not installed a machine making widgets in your garage – yes I would want rent if they asked for this!) In the UK at least, this does not have any impact on your personal tax affairs with regard to the house, i.e. it does not become suddenly, in part, a business premises.
HMRC set a level of heat, light and power compensation that they will permit your employer may pay you as a legitimate business expense with no questions asked. I think that is the £12 a month number we get, and you are right it is not a lot at all. It might light a small office for a month and power a PC, but probably wouldn’t be any meaningful contribution to heating – at least not during a UK winter. Your employer can give you more, in fact any amount they like, but above the ‘allowed’ amount HMRC reserve the right to ask questions and in theory you would need to be able to provide receipts/evidence.
The rules seem to be changing (at least according to my employer’s interpretation) in that if they pay your telephone and broadband costs then unless that line is used exclusively for business it is a benefit-in-kind and thus subject to income tax.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Therefore if they really check for it, German equivalent of IRS would actually expect you to have two office type rooms in your home as they do not believe that you don’t even have a “private” printer somewhere. Practically spoken, however, such things are really actually checked if they are not after you for more broad tax avoidance where this is the icing on the cake.
I think Covid will bring changes in tax legislation (or at least its application) as well. The world will change, whether those all those changes will stick is another matter, but some will.
It has long be recognised if you wish to control society it is very dangerous to give the punters a taste of doing things differently, because they might just realise there is a better way!
As a commercial property landlord I can easily say in my case business rates are way more of an issue than rent. our rent received for our properties is I think in nearly all cases less (often significantly so) than the business rates applied to the properties. It’s really a terrible system and everyone has known business rates are broken for a long time. Just councils see it as an easy way to rinse some money, and with them still collecting empty rates there is no incentive for them to have properties occupied.
And in return Councils have their backs against the wall with lots of legal obligations to meet but a massive shortfall in the money they have with which to do so and no ability to tax Amazon or other online shops. The whole system needs reform from the top down…
