9 ms·

One angle I didn't see covered - if home working works for you it becomes much more difficult for another company to poach you if they don't also offer home wor

One angle I didn't see covered - if home working works for you it becomes much more difficult for another company to poach you if they don't also offer home working, and so I can see that it might harm your career in terms of inertia. I work from home and I'd say I'd need to increase my salary by around 30% to justify a move taking into account commuting costs, 2.5 hours spent on the crappy train each day and the usual tax robbery..

ryandrake 9y ago
> I'd need to increase my salary by around 30% to justify a move taking into account commuting costs, 2.5 hours spent on the crappy train each day Interesting. I'm wondering if that's true in reverse for people. Did you accept a 23% pay cut to work from home? For people who currently work in an office, would you accept that? It seems pretty steep--I don't think I could afford to do that. > and the usual tax robbery.. You don't pay taxes working from home?
- Hydraulix989 9y ago
  > You don't pay taxes working from home? He's justifying the large monetary penalty for NOT working at home by mentioning that it takes in account income tax as well.
- GFischer 9y ago
  I know people that have accepted a pay cut to work from home. Anecdotal evidence, YMMV, etc :) . I've never been offered the chance (and sadly, I need the money).
- jrs95 9y ago
  I think he's just referring to the high amount of tax he'd pay on the additional 30% pay
- zaphos 9y ago
  This kind of thinking works out if you personally value your time at an hourly rate, and consider the whole commute time as lost and unpaid. For example, say you value your time at ~$50/hr, and the train costs $8/day, and there are 20 work days in a month. If your daily commute takes 2.5 hrs, that's $2660/month in value to you. If your marginal income tax rate is 28%, then to actually get that amount of additional spending money you'd need to make $2660/.72 = $3695/month. This would be a 30% raise if you currently make about 12k/month (144k/yr).
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    Interesting way to look at it, thanks. My commute costs roughly $10/day (100 miles x $0.12 or so a mile), so that's $2400/yr to commute. It's hard to justify assigning a dollar value to your time though, unless you'd otherwise be making that ~$50/hr. If I were not commuting for 4 hours per day, it's not like I'd be consulting for those hours, so there's no opportunity cost. Is the time I'd otherwise spend lying on the couch worth ~$50/hr? Hard to say.
    - Nadya 9y ago
      >Is the time I'd otherwise spend lying on the couch worth ~$50/hr? Hard to say. Assign an hourly value to your free time. If you wanted to relax at home on a Saturday playing video games, how much money would I need to pay you to do something for me instead? I'll work for no less than $20/hr. I'll give up my free time for no less than $100/hr. My rates differ because, at least for me, I'm required to work to pay bills and pay to do things I enjoy doing with my free time. Since I'm required to do it and I need to be realistic with what I ask for, I charge less. My free time is time I'm not required to work - so there needs to be enough monetary incentive for me to be willing to give up my free time. Idealistically my "work rate" would match my "free time rate".
      - benji-york 9y ago
        This is a good way to look at it. I think an economist would call this your "marginal wage".
      - brianwawok 9y ago
        Free time is a bit of a curve too I think (like marginal utility). In an entire 7 day week, if I only had 1 hour of freetime, I would value it at $1000. My 100th hour I might only value at $5, as I would be getting bored. So if you are busy with family and commitments.. working from home vs not may be the difference between 10h and 0h of freetime a week. Whereas for a single guy with no hobbies, it might only change the balance from 30h of freetime to 40h of freetime, which is a bit less.
- LordKano 9y ago
  You don't pay taxes working from home? I suspect there's no "occupational privilege tax" if you're working from home. I live in the suburbs and work in the city and for the privilege of having a job, I have to pay the city money.
  - bezouret 9y ago
    If you are a programmer flying in from Rumenia 3 times a year for some face time, you are subject to Rumenian tax rules, which say that programmers do not pay income tax: http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-land-where-skilled-it-workers-dont-pay-tax-yes-it-really-exists/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-land-where-skilled-it-worke... In fact, you do not even need to live in Rumenia to use this clause. All you need to do, is to set up a Rumenian company that invoices your employer and then pays you your salary, free of tax. This is just one of the gazillion ways in which as a programmer, you can avoid paying even one dollar in income tax. I have personally paid the equivalent of less than 12 months worth of income tax in a career of 25+ years. Seriously, there is never a good reason to pay it. You can always circumvent any attempt at making you pay. That is pretty much always trivial.
    - Boothroid 9y ago
      You have to be careful though. Lots of the tax authorities share information across borders these days.
    - ajdlinux 9y ago
      "All you need to do, is to set up a Rumenian company that invoices your employer and then pays you your salary, free of tax." Uh, generally speaking one is still liable to pay income tax on payments coming from a foreign company.
- Nadya 9y ago
  >Interesting. I'm wondering if that's true in reverse for people. Did you accept a 23% pay cut to work from home? I'm preparing for a big move that will require me to work remotely or leave the company. Part of my bargaining chips is accepting up to a 50% pay cut, starting at a much lower % of course (10-20%~) There's no reason I can't work remotely other than they dislike it. The team frequently works from home/remotely (eg: while "on vacation") and there is little in the way of processes that requires anyone to come in to the office. Nearly all communication happens over Slack and the occasional email chain. I love the company I work for and don't want to leave them. But I also have my own dreams and ambitions in life and given a choice between the two I'll choose to follow my dreams.
- mnm1 9y ago
  I didn't accept a pay cut, although the wage hasn't kept up in the area the company is located in. In other words, I wouldn't even consider working on site for my current company without a minimum ~50% raise (bay area). In the US, you can cut out state taxes by moving to a state that doesn't levy income tax. It's a nice self-raise.
- bezouret 9y ago
  > You don't pay taxes working from home? It is very easy to achieve that by moving out of the country. You see, in 75% of the globe they do not have a population registry with address registry with a functioning postal system to send you a tax return right to where you happen to live. A lot of these countries -- most actually -- have an income tax system on their books, but they cannot make it work, not even to save themselves from drowning. In those circumstances it is impossible for them to ask me about my income, which they then don't. I pay no income tax because nobody around me does, and if they did, I would just move elsewhere.
  - pc86 9y ago
    So you're a thief. Got it.
    - bezouret 9y ago
      For us, the believers, all legitimacy emanates from the laws of the One God. For you, filthy pagans, it is a well-known fact that legitimacy could even emanate from the inventions of your political clowns.
      - sctb 9y ago
        Hacker News is not the place for religious flamewars, so please don't comment like this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- cr0sh 9y ago
  > You don't pay taxes working from home? If you dedicate a portion of your home as a "home office" that you work out of, suddenly you can gain a lot of interesting deductions, based on the square footage of the home office. It's not a lot (but every little bit counts), and it also depends on how much you work out of the home, but there's various deductions for electricity, internet costs, magazine and book purchases (relating to your work), and other items. So you could potentially lose this if you don't work from home (and if you don't claim the deductions, of course). This may or may not be what they mean, though...
  - Boothroid 9y ago
    No, just simply referring to UK taxation.
- Boothroid 9y ago
  I'm on about the same as a previous role, but with the benefit of working from home. The tax point is that about half of any increase would disappear in tax etc. An annual train ticket is £5k. So if I then consider travelling hours to be working hours and factor in the hassle of the journey it doesn't look good. The way I think about it is what if someone woke me up each morning and said 'I'll give you x to travel to the metropolis and back today for work' - how much would it have to be on top of what I earn now? Basically it would be more than I could expect to get via a realistic pay rise once everyone else has dipped their beak along the way.
- BraveNewCurency 9y ago
  In the US, you can get a tax deduction for the part of your home you use for work.
planteen 9y ago
My gut feel is that the 30% number is about right. I was offered a remote work position a year ago. I asked two software engineer friends who worked from home how much value they would assign to it. Both of them gave the same number, $30k, which is a little less than 30% but definitely in the ballpark.

ryandrake 9y ago

> I'd need to increase my salary by around 30% to justify a move taking into account commuting costs, 2.5 hours spent on the crappy train each day Interesting. I'm wondering if that's true in reverse for people. Did you accept a 23% pay cut to work from home? For people who currently work in an office, would you accept that? It seems pretty steep--I don't think I could afford to do that. > and the usual tax robbery.. You don't pay taxes working from home?

Hydraulix989 9y ago
> You don't pay taxes working from home? He's justifying the large monetary penalty for NOT working at home by mentioning that it takes in account income tax as well.
GFischer 9y ago
I know people that have accepted a pay cut to work from home. Anecdotal evidence, YMMV, etc :) . I've never been offered the chance (and sadly, I need the money).
jrs95 9y ago
I think he's just referring to the high amount of tax he'd pay on the additional 30% pay
zaphos 9y ago
This kind of thinking works out if you personally value your time at an hourly rate, and consider the whole commute time as lost and unpaid. For example, say you value your time at ~$50/hr, and the train costs $8/day, and there are 20 work days in a month. If your daily commute takes 2.5 hrs, that's $2660/month in value to you. If your marginal income tax rate is 28%, then to actually get that amount of additional spending money you'd need to make $2660/.72 = $3695/month. This would be a 30% raise if you currently make about 12k/month (144k/yr).
- ryandrake 9y ago
  Interesting way to look at it, thanks. My commute costs roughly $10/day (100 miles x $0.12 or so a mile), so that's $2400/yr to commute. It's hard to justify assigning a dollar value to your time though, unless you'd otherwise be making that ~$50/hr. If I were not commuting for 4 hours per day, it's not like I'd be consulting for those hours, so there's no opportunity cost. Is the time I'd otherwise spend lying on the couch worth ~$50/hr? Hard to say.
  - Nadya 9y ago
    >Is the time I'd otherwise spend lying on the couch worth ~$50/hr? Hard to say. Assign an hourly value to your free time. If you wanted to relax at home on a Saturday playing video games, how much money would I need to pay you to do something for me instead? I'll work for no less than $20/hr. I'll give up my free time for no less than $100/hr. My rates differ because, at least for me, I'm required to work to pay bills and pay to do things I enjoy doing with my free time. Since I'm required to do it and I need to be realistic with what I ask for, I charge less. My free time is time I'm not required to work - so there needs to be enough monetary incentive for me to be willing to give up my free time. Idealistically my "work rate" would match my "free time rate".
    - benji-york 9y ago
      This is a good way to look at it. I think an economist would call this your "marginal wage".
    - brianwawok 9y ago
      Free time is a bit of a curve too I think (like marginal utility). In an entire 7 day week, if I only had 1 hour of freetime, I would value it at $1000. My 100th hour I might only value at $5, as I would be getting bored. So if you are busy with family and commitments.. working from home vs not may be the difference between 10h and 0h of freetime a week. Whereas for a single guy with no hobbies, it might only change the balance from 30h of freetime to 40h of freetime, which is a bit less.
LordKano 9y ago
You don't pay taxes working from home? I suspect there's no "occupational privilege tax" if you're working from home. I live in the suburbs and work in the city and for the privilege of having a job, I have to pay the city money.
- bezouret 9y ago
  If you are a programmer flying in from Rumenia 3 times a year for some face time, you are subject to Rumenian tax rules, which say that programmers do not pay income tax: http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-land-where-skilled-it-workers-dont-pay-tax-yes-it-really-exists/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-land-where-skilled-it-worke... In fact, you do not even need to live in Rumenia to use this clause. All you need to do, is to set up a Rumenian company that invoices your employer and then pays you your salary, free of tax. This is just one of the gazillion ways in which as a programmer, you can avoid paying even one dollar in income tax. I have personally paid the equivalent of less than 12 months worth of income tax in a career of 25+ years. Seriously, there is never a good reason to pay it. You can always circumvent any attempt at making you pay. That is pretty much always trivial.
  - Boothroid 9y ago
    You have to be careful though. Lots of the tax authorities share information across borders these days.
  - ajdlinux 9y ago
    "All you need to do, is to set up a Rumenian company that invoices your employer and then pays you your salary, free of tax." Uh, generally speaking one is still liable to pay income tax on payments coming from a foreign company.
Nadya 9y ago
>Interesting. I'm wondering if that's true in reverse for people. Did you accept a 23% pay cut to work from home? I'm preparing for a big move that will require me to work remotely or leave the company. Part of my bargaining chips is accepting up to a 50% pay cut, starting at a much lower % of course (10-20%~) There's no reason I can't work remotely other than they dislike it. The team frequently works from home/remotely (eg: while "on vacation") and there is little in the way of processes that requires anyone to come in to the office. Nearly all communication happens over Slack and the occasional email chain. I love the company I work for and don't want to leave them. But I also have my own dreams and ambitions in life and given a choice between the two I'll choose to follow my dreams.
mnm1 9y ago
I didn't accept a pay cut, although the wage hasn't kept up in the area the company is located in. In other words, I wouldn't even consider working on site for my current company without a minimum ~50% raise (bay area). In the US, you can cut out state taxes by moving to a state that doesn't levy income tax. It's a nice self-raise.
bezouret 9y ago
> You don't pay taxes working from home? It is very easy to achieve that by moving out of the country. You see, in 75% of the globe they do not have a population registry with address registry with a functioning postal system to send you a tax return right to where you happen to live. A lot of these countries -- most actually -- have an income tax system on their books, but they cannot make it work, not even to save themselves from drowning. In those circumstances it is impossible for them to ask me about my income, which they then don't. I pay no income tax because nobody around me does, and if they did, I would just move elsewhere.
- pc86 9y ago
  So you're a thief. Got it.
  - bezouret 9y ago
    For us, the believers, all legitimacy emanates from the laws of the One God. For you, filthy pagans, it is a well-known fact that legitimacy could even emanate from the inventions of your political clowns.
    - sctb 9y ago
      Hacker News is not the place for religious flamewars, so please don't comment like this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
cr0sh 9y ago
> You don't pay taxes working from home? If you dedicate a portion of your home as a "home office" that you work out of, suddenly you can gain a lot of interesting deductions, based on the square footage of the home office. It's not a lot (but every little bit counts), and it also depends on how much you work out of the home, but there's various deductions for electricity, internet costs, magazine and book purchases (relating to your work), and other items. So you could potentially lose this if you don't work from home (and if you don't claim the deductions, of course). This may or may not be what they mean, though...
- Boothroid 9y ago
  No, just simply referring to UK taxation.
Boothroid 9y ago
I'm on about the same as a previous role, but with the benefit of working from home. The tax point is that about half of any increase would disappear in tax etc. An annual train ticket is £5k. So if I then consider travelling hours to be working hours and factor in the hassle of the journey it doesn't look good. The way I think about it is what if someone woke me up each morning and said 'I'll give you x to travel to the metropolis and back today for work' - how much would it have to be on top of what I earn now? Basically it would be more than I could expect to get via a realistic pay rise once everyone else has dipped their beak along the way.
BraveNewCurency 9y ago
In the US, you can get a tax deduction for the part of your home you use for work.

planteen 9y ago

My gut feel is that the 30% number is about right. I was offered a remote work position a year ago. I asked two software engineer friends who worked from home how much value they would assign to it. Both of them gave the same number, $30k, which is a little less than 30% but definitely in the ballpark.