There is a monetary incentive: owning or leasing office space comes at a premium expense.

That's far from enough IME. And a remote employee might still need some place other than their home sofa to work so that cost isn't automatically removed just by moving people out of the "one office."

> heavy tax on all presence-required jobs

It's called a carbon tax -- if you tax jet fuel, gasoline and coal-based electricity for office a/c equally, the invisible hand of company bean counters and employees will figure out the low-carbon compromise.

That's a great way to lose tons of manufacturing, skilled craftsmanship, assembly, repair, and service sectors jobs along with many people in the arts, cinema, music, and... well almost everything but coding, finance, and the CAD parts of engineering.

Came here to say the same thing. There remain a plurality of jobs that literally require physical access to tools, systems, cash registers, customers, etc.

I agree that where possible, remote should be allowed/encouraged. I also think that for roles where that can't work, we should consider 4 day work weeks, or other non-commute or less commute strategies. But, to a great extent we are not going to eliminate the in-person nature of working with other people, and we probably shouldn't aim to all live in little bubbles.

Source: I have been full time remote for 7 years. I estimate it saves me ~25k/year in direct and indirect costs + time.

From the employee side, an easy-to-use calculator for commuting expenses could help. The monetary incentive is there for choosing a remote position, but people don't always know what it is, especially with car commuting.

From the employee side, there should not be an extra cost to pay. The problem is with companies and bosses wanting people to come to the office. That is what needs to be fixed, therefore the company needs to be taxed, not the employee. Taxing the employee just makes shitty underpaid jobs even worse, no upside and maybe increased unemployment as a downside

One of the things economics is pretty sure about nowadays is that it doesn't matter who you tax, it matters who is more flexible. If employers can fire you and hire someone to replace you easily they'll be able to pass on most of the cost of the tax. If you could have your pick of jobs you can make your employer pay most of the new tax even if technically it's a tax on employees.

Ask essentially any at least minimally competent expert in economics and they'll tell you it doesn't matter who hands the money to the government (although they might call it the relative elasticity of supply and demand dictating tax incidence). They may all be wrong, but your phrasing gives me the impression you haven't considered this and came up with a good counterargument.