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LONDON – White-collar staff who reap the financial benefits of working from home should be taxed to help other workers who don’t get the same benefits, Deutsche Bank experts said in a new report.
In its report on how to rebuild the economy after COVID-19, the bank proposed a 5% daily tax on every employee who continues to work from home, which could raise tens of billions of dollars for governments. The money could be used to help low-income workers who have taken on greater risk because their work cannot be done remotely, he said.
The bank noted that the global pandemic has disrupted the shift to remote work, a trend that looks set to last in the long term with many workers expecting to spend at least a few days of the working week at home even after the pandemic ends.
These workers benefit from greater comfort and flexibility. They also save money directly because they don’t have to pay the costs of commuting, take-out lunches, or buying and dry-cleaning work clothes, but that means companies that have grown to support employees won’t be able to bounce back and “the economic malaise will be extended, ”the report said.
While it makes no sense for the government to support, for example, a downtown sandwich shop if it no longer has customers from nearby office towers, “it makes sense to support the mass of people who have suddenly been displaced forces beyond their control,” the bank said. “From a personal and financial point of view, it makes sense to help these people.”
The tax would amount to just over $ 10 per day, assuming the average salary of an American working from home is $ 55,000. This is roughly the amount the worker could spend on commuting, lunch, and laundry, which would leave them no worse off than going to the office, the report said. Could raise up to $ 48 billion in the US Deutsche Bank made similar calculations for Germany and the UK
But the proposals met with strong skepticism.
Andrew Hunter, co-founder of the job search engine Adzuna.co.uk, said the idea was misleading and predicted it would be incredibly unpopular.
“It punishes progressive companies and those with children or care responsibilities, who were responsible during the pandemic, who are already taking on higher costs and helping the environment by staying at home,” Hunter said. “Let’s be honest, there are many better ways to raise taxes!”
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Follow AP’s coronavirus pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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Follow Kelvin Chan at www.twitter.com/chanman
Kelvin Chan, The Associated Press
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