Working from home? You mean drinking coffee at home
By now, people working from home in the Netherlands have started doing the math. Employees receive less in travel expense reimbursements—because: what travel expenses?—but do incur extra costs for that delicious espresso from their own little kitchen and all the cappuccinos that follow throughout the day. How much does that add up to?
Some employers already pay their employees work-from-home allowances. This is more or less standard practice, especially in the public sector and at larger companies. Employees can use the allowance, for example, to cover the increased consumption of coffee and tea at home. The problem: the tax authorities view this work-from-home allowance as income, while the travel expense reimbursement is listed on the payslip as tax-free compensation. And employers would very much like to change that. Employers’ association AWVN is campaigning for this.
Toilet paper too
AWVN conducted a survey among employers. Most say they intend to start paying a work-from-home allowance, or already do so. They estimate that two euros a day should be enough for those extra cups of joe, as well as toilet paper and possibly the heating, which gets turned up a degree during the day. Work-from-home equipment such as desks, monitors and printers is not included.
Does it add up?
Let’s do the math: how far does two euros get you for a whole day of coffee and tea? Filter coffee can be made at home for 9 cents per cup, but if you opt for pods or capsules, that can rise to 45 cents or more.
A stirrer on the side
A few years ago, RTL Z calculated how much a cup of coffee costs an employer. A coffee machine in the pantry obviously isn’t free; converted, it comes to 39 cents per cardboard cup. That’s without the cup itself (5 cents), stirrer (0.04 cents) or sugar sachet (2 cents), by the way. So if we’re counting cents anyway, employers probably save much more on coffee and tea than they pay their employees in work-from-home allowances.
A cookie on the side? Let’s calculate whether that still fits within the work-from-home allowance…
