They do compensate you. It's called a salary. I don't get reimbursed for my work clothes, car (which I only need because I commute) or haircuts, but my company expects me to have all of these.

I'm sure that I can find a company that wouldn't require any of these, but the salary and benefits from my current job outweigh these costs.

That's kind of ludicrous and I think you know it. The space I work in in my NYC apartment is now space that is not living space. I had to carve square feet out of my apartment to provide space for my company's economic activity.

My clothes have nothing to do with my employer, nor does my car, even if I use them while working, I can also use them for other things.

It's the employer's responsibility to create the space for working. Currently we're all basically loaning our bosses some space in our homes. If everyone's boss goes "huh well, guess I don't need a physical office anymore" then all they've done is offload the responsibility for housing their work to their employees, with no compensation.

As an employer, I fully intend to pass a meaningful portion of any savings from reduced rent/real estate costs to my employees. I’m not sure exactly how much or how, yet, but some ideas:

   - Expense Budget for tech upgrades (desk, hardware, etc). Probably a few hundred dollars a month per employee once you do the math.
   - Or maybe Directly boost salaries by a similar amount?
   - Throw a bumping annual all expense paid off-site trip with the $$$ not spent on rent

Far from being able to implement it given a long term lease but I’d really be surprised if a company dropped its real estate footprint and not pass some perk or benefit onto the employees.

FWIW, in Germany if you have a dedicated (and well-separated, "curtain at minimum", such is the legal requirement) workspace, you can deduct its costs from your taxable income.

If you're an employee, AFAIK the company is also required to cover some costs, but I don't remember what exactly & under what conditions...

We have a similar system in the US, though perhaps slightly more flexible. I've always found it to be a bizarre subsidy for those who can afford large homes. People in small apartments generally have no option but to have living space and work space completely overlapping.

With the recent tax law changes, though, I believe a majority of people end up taking the standard deduction because they can’t come up with enough itemized deductions to exceed that. The inability to fully deduct state taxes is a big one, for example.

Dear Employee,

Your salary has been reduced by 20% due to the recession. On the positive side, we will now give you a 3% raise to cover your home office sorts.

Sincerely Management

I think that was meant to sound Dilbert-esque, but really any business impacted by the probably inevitable recession, which manages to both stay afloat (with some cutbacks) and convert to a work-from-home arrangement, is probably being pretty competently managed. What you describe is probably a relatively good outcome with all that's going on.

In the future employment contracts might stipulate such compensation in order to remain competitive.

Something to consider, though: Most employees today probably aren't compensated for the time and money they waste during their daily commute. What about car maintenance? Unless they're driving a company car to work most employees will have to pay for that themselves. Shouldn't the employer cover or reimburse these costs?

In many ways, including WFH explicitly in salary agreements would be unusual largely because workers incur a large number of other work related expenses that are not explicitly enumerated in the agreement. But those costs are implicitly included, as employers have to compete against each other to offer salary and benefits necessary to attract talent.

But practically speaking, it would not be surprising to see WFH companies offer slightly higher salaries largely due to the significant savings associated with no offices, as well as the reduced risk of not having a lease. If I save $27K a year per employee (from the article), I can easily offer candidates $10K more than my competitors with an office, increasing profit and attracting higher quality talent.

> daily commute

Do you want to have someone who lives next to work get the job rather than you because he won't have commute costs? Be careful about unintended consequences.

If you believe you are worth more money, negotiate for that.

I'm willing to draw the line at "the boss needs to pay for the things that happen at work." That would not include commute. But it does include the place I keep all my work stuff.

Do you really want your employer auditing your home office? Is that expensive graphics card for work or for gaming?

I'm not sure why this would be worth doing for the employer. once you add up salary and associated costs (health insurance, payroll, etc.), a typical engineer costs at least $100,000/yr in most areas of the US. if a few of them abuse the system to buy $1000 graphics cards, does it really move the needle?

my employer does not reimburse home office expenses, but several of my friends work for employers that do. the way it works for them is that they get a yearly "technology" budget of about $1000-2000. then they can spend it on any equipment they want to use at home or in the office. as long as it's some sort of computer hardware or office furniture, no questions are asked.

> "technology" budget

That's basically just a $1000 bump in your salary. The fiction that you're getting an extra technology benefit is just that, a fiction.

From a pragmatic point of view, and an accounting one (for the employer), your "benefits" are taken from your salary. The only time those benefits are worth it for the employer is if it pays for something pre-tax rather than post-tax (health care falls into this category, hence the popularity of employer provided health care).

The accounting term for this is "total employee compensation". That's what matters to the employer when calculating the cost/benefit of an employee.

Be careful what you ask for in benefits. They can be expensive for the employee.

I must admit I'm not very familiar with business accounting or tax rules, and I can't find any sources that directly address this specific topic. it's my understanding that equipment purchases are counted as expenses for the business, so they get to subtract it from their taxable income. does this change when the employee directly controls equipment purchases?

> if a few of them abuse the system to buy $1000 graphics cards, does it really move the needle?

That does happen a lot with expense reports. They get abused all the time. Sometimes, though, employees do get their ERs audited, and get fired for ER fraud. Especially if the employer needs a reason to fire you.

The employer might not but the IRS might if you claim it as a home office expense. If more people work from home and beef up their home offices to accommodate that, there will be tax implications for that. When I was freelancing from home years ago, I never bothered (all I needed for work was email and a red pencil), but today it would be different.

Do you feel the same way about time/miles/space-time usage of your automobile, or time+tickets for public transit?

Seems like fungible costs

Also seems different depending if it is a laptop, vs trilpe-workstation-10 screen setup?

Yes, in my commuter-heavy locale, employers often subsidize transportation and parking costs.

When working on my own, I charge clients for travel costs or build it into their pricing.

I don't, because I'm not at work while I do those things. I'm willing to take responsibility for getting myself to work; but I don't think it's fair that I'm currently loaning my employer some free square footage in my apartment that's dedicated solely to their economic activity.

If they're paying you, isn't it dedicated solely to your economic activity?

In general things like public transport ticket subsidies and work cars are not that rare here. But the employer also saves rent, utilities and maintenance when someone is working from home compared to that person requiring an office.

Where is here? AT least in the USA, cars used for commuting are almost never covered. If it's a car used for the job itself, then it is.

I don't see why it would be important to for employers to specifically compensate people for things like that: ultimately what matters is the total amount of money earned regardless of how it is split.

Also in most cases work that is done at home is done in on a computer, so the same space that is used for home computer use can be reused at no additional space cost besides possibly an extra desktop or laptop if a dedicated machine is used.

"Computer" / "computer desk" is not a universal fixture in everyones' homes.

And yet you don't get paid for your commute time.

I ride the subway for a lot of reasons (or drive a car, if you're in a car place). But I use my dedicated work space only to produce profit for my employer. They should compensate me for it if the space is space I'm paying for.

I use my home office for mostly for working. But I can also relax in it.

In my case, a budget for a new chair or basic office supplies would be helpful.

Standard way to deal with that is have the company order a chair and have it shipped to your house.