When you work from home, you incur costs that you would not incur when you go to the office. You drink your own coffee or tea, use water for which you pay the bill yourself and heat at your own expense. That is why companies can offer their employees a tax-free home working allowance of € 2022 per day from 2. Please note: your employer does not have to do this. Start a conversation about the homework allowance.
Why a work-from-home allowance?
Many people have been working from home for more than a year and a half now than before. Obviously, this affects your own accounts. Nibud already calculated that last year you spend an average of € 2 a day on things like electricity, water, gas, coffee and toilet paper. If you work five days a week, working from home will cost you more than € 40. That is why it will be possible for employers from 2022 to pay a tax-free home working allowance of € 2 per day.
How does the homework allowance work?
This work-at-home allowance falls under the work-related costs scheme, under which companies reimburse certain costs for their employees without deduction of payroll taxes. The same applies, for example, to the travel allowance.
Working from home? Then no travel allowance
In order to be able to reimburse these working from home costs, employers have recently been able to continue to pay the travel allowance tax-free – they can continue to do this until January 1, 2022. With the home work allowance, tax laws and regulations are more in line with the new reality of hybrid working, in which we work partly at home and partly in the office. So if you travel to the workplace from 2022, you can receive a travel allowance for this. And do you work at home? Then your employer can pay you a homework allowance.
Not mandatory, so good appointments necessary
Your employer is not obliged to give you a work-from-home allowance. In some cases, agreements will be made about this in the company regulations or the collective labor agreement. If not, try to make arrangements yourself. For example, do you work two days at home and three days at the office? Then you can agree that you will receive a home working allowance for two days and that your employer will compensate your travel costs for three days a week. If you suddenly work somewhere else than planned, you do not have to adjust the compensation immediately. This is necessary if your schedule changes structurally.
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More information
Questions about the homework allowance? Or do you want help making arrangements with your employer about compensation? Feel free to contact us, our experts will be happy to help you. Our Service Center is available every working day from 8.00 am to 18.00 pm via sc@unie.nl and 0345 851 963.
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