The Coronavirus Pandemic has led to many changes in our daily lives. One of the primary changes is quarantine. Everyone has to stay home to curb the spread of the virus. That’s why many are working from home. Rather than doing no work, companies are switching to working from home. They are encouraging their employees to work from home during the lockdown.
In Australia, most of the people are working from home. Working from home also has its expenses. While working in an office, it uses the company’s appliances, electricity, and the Internet; at home, it is the personal items that get used from power to Internet costs. Many companies are hence meeting the increased expenses for work from home.
The companies are meeting the expenses reasonably. So, employees can ask for compensation for the use of heating & Cooling, depreciation on Laptop, desktop, etc., cleaning, printing & Stationery, depreciation on home office furniture, and phone & Internet expenses.
According to ThinkWiser, employees can ask for reimbursement through the fixed rate method. In this method, they claim a specific price for an hour for all the expenses, including the electricity, the laptop, the heating, or cooling services. It will include all the services an employee uses while working from home.
In the shortcut method, one can claim 80 cents an hour for all the running services one uses like electricity, gas, depreciation, phone & internet costs, consumables. It has been active since March 1st and will be in place till the end of June.
It is better to keep a tab on the actual expenses of working from home. Companies can encourage their employees to have a fixed dedicated area where they can work. This will minimize the losses. And it will be easy to keep track of the costs.
