Netherlands – A new tax exempt working from home allowance
Estimated reading time 3 minutes
Since 1 January 2022, employers can provide a tax exempt ‘working from home allowance’ of EUR 2 per working day. The allowance is intended to cover any additional expenses incurred when working at home (heating, coffee/tea etc.). This working from home allowance will not need to be deducted from the employer's tax-free allowance as part of the employment costs scheme (werkkostenregeling), or be taxed at the final levy rate (eindheffingstarief) of 80%.
Fixed allowances
Employers can also provide a fixed working from home allowance which can be determined in a similar way to the (current) statutory system for fixed commuting expense allowance. The employer may apply the working from home allowance for 214 days if an employee works at least 128 days per calendar year from home (all numbers to be prorated if the employee will work from home less than five days a week).
One important aspect of this new legislation to remember is that the working from home allowance and a commuting expense allowance cannot be claimed at the same time (that is, on ‘hybrid’ working days). The legislator considers it undesirable for an employee to receive both an exempt working from home allowance and an exempt commuting expense allowance on the same day. For this reason, the allowance may turn out to be quite burdensome and inflexible to apply in practice.
Find out more
This article was produced by Karin Chung, Tax Adviser at Loyens & Loeff, the Netherlands, a CELIA Alliance member firm.
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