My last job did give me a stipend that more or less covered my internet bill. That was nice.

Same here, add to that some office equipment at a huge discount, when they had to close the office during the pandemic, a one-time fair amount of cash for spending in home office equipment, and a smaller but nice yearly amount for the same.

In Germany you can tax deduct your rent for an office room with a door and a proportion of your utilities for the office

Only if you don't use the room for anything except work.

You've got a computer in there that you're also using for private stuff? Not tax-deductible anymore.

Private books on the bookshelf? Not tax-deductible anymore.

You've got a wardrobe with some clothes you're only accessing once per season (to store off-season clothes)? Not tax-deductible anymore.

Like you will declare those...

Sure, many don't. And many people have found that the tax office does inspections from time to time. That's not a pandemic issue, the laws and the jurisprudence have been in place for decades.

But you just have to love how HN endorses tax fraud.

It is not nearly handled so strictly anymore, in my experience. Of course, it could vary by tax office.

This is correct and I'm not sure why it's been downvoted. In Germany, you'd better only every use the work-room for work only. As people have pointed out, you're not likely to get audited for this but often, with apartments, it can be quite obvious that you're using the space for non-work stuff too (for eg, if you're living in a 50 sqm apartment, it's pretty easy to say that you can't possibly have a dedicated work only room).

In the US, my accountant always (and as I understand it, the rules have gotten stricter) recommended against taking a home office deduction unless you really had dedicated space for equipment etc. The way more typical "office space you often use for doing work" was long seen as a red flag for a deduction and, in the typical case, as you say, truly dedicated space is rare absent a large place and/or specialized needs.

I could make a room a dedicated day-job office but it would cost me way more to do so than I would ever get as a deduction and it would almost certainly be inferior to the mixed-use setup I use.

This is such a perverse rule. You don't have enough living space? You can't possibly claim compensation for being forced to also use that as a workspace.

Depending on the state they allow to deduce a room partially and during corona they were a lot more tolerant.

That might work if the job is fully remote and doesn't have a physical office for you to work at, as most companies will simply say "you can come to the office and use the facilities there for free".

Most decent companies will give you some money though for WFH or let you borrow stuff from the office like chairs and monitors.

While I'd love to have the financial burden of commuting/WFH be imposed on the employer instead on the workforce, that would require another labor revolution, so far I'd just be happy to have 100% WFH possibly. Internet I use anyway, and I can pay for the extra water, energy and heating by myself, the extra difference is insignificant compared to the time I save commuting to the office.

Why not just 1099 everyone at that point? Oh because then you can't bullshit people with career carrots and establish sunk costs and healthcare anxiety to retain people.

Some sort of do. Mine pays for my wifi and cell bill.