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Working from home: benefit from the "easy option"
Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / picture alliance / dpa
The proposal sounds simple: Hesse and Bavaria want to work in the Federal Council to ensure that more people can deduct their home office from tax.
Above all, those who cannot set up their own study should benefit from the planned "simple variant", as the Bavarian Finance Minister Albert Füracker (CSU) and his Hessian colleague Michael Boddenberg (CDU) announced.
The initiative they want to bring to the Federal Council's Finance Committee stipulates that a lump sum of five euros can be set as income-related expenses per full day in the home office - a maximum of 600 euros per year.
According to the finance ministers' plans, special requirements in the apartment are not necessary.
They wanted "that the additional costs of the home office can be claimed unbureaucratically with the income tax", declared the ministers.
The proposal contributes "to the tax simplification" and could "help to pacify the frequent conflicts with the tax office in the current practice with the office costs".
It is not the first foray in this direction.
The family politician Silke Launert (CSU) had demanded a tax-deductible lump sum of 600 euros in July.
The CSU regional group also wants to promote home workplaces from a tax point of view and introduce a "flexi week" in which employers and employees can agree on flexible working hours.
The FDP member of the Bundestag Gerald Ullrich is also campaigning for more tax benefits for work at home.
At present, only those who have their own room can claim their work at home for tax purposes.
"However, this misses the reality of most employees," complained Ullrich.
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kha / dpa