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Working-from-home and commuting compensation as of October 2021
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The Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities (cao-NU) 2021 contains provisions for a working-from-home compensation. As agreed with the Local Consultative Body, all employees received a one-off compensation of €50 for working from home in September. The provisions of the new cao-NU will apply as of October 2021.
The current commuting expenses scheme, as laid down in the UM Commuting and Relocation Allowance Regulations, was suspended on 1 November 2020 due to the corona crisis. This suspension initially applied until 31 December 2020, but was later—tacitly—extended until September. As of October 2021 the original commuting expenses scheme will be reinstated.
In this email, we explain what these two schemes mean for you.
Intrinsically linked
It stands to reason that if you work from home, you are not entitled to compensation of your commuting expenses, and vice versa. From a fiscal perspective, too, a commuting compensation may only be paid out when an employee is actually commuting; likewise, the working-from-home compensation can only be paid out if you actually work from home.
At present, UM does not have information on exactly when each employee is working from home or is present on campus. Moreover, we wish to give employees a few months to seek out the most suitable balance for them between working from home versus on campus. You will therefore be asked to declare at the end of each month how many days you spent working from home or on campus. The intention is that you will only need to make these declarations until the beginning of 2022. By then, every employee should have made a written agreement with their manager on how many days they will work from home and on campus. These agreements will be used to determine the level of the reimbursement. The implementation of this plan depends on the outcome of the current pilot phase of the Future of Working project, which will run until the end of this year.
Good to know:
- Although these are two separate schemes, you can declare your days spent working at home and on campus simultaneously.
- Declarations must be based on fact and can only be made retrospectively, once a month. Declarations made per week or in other instalments will not be accepted.
- Both commuting and working-from-home expenses for the month of October can be registered from the beginning of November.
- For the month of September, the € 0.19/km can still be claimed. This is possible until the last week of October at the latest. After that, the system will be converted to the new method.
Commuting compensation
The tax authorities assume that commuting expenses may only be reimbursed based on the actual number of travel days. You will have to declare these monthly. The new commuting regulations as of 1 October 2021 can be summarised as follows:
- Travel by public transport is 100% reimbursed on the basis of your declaration if the one-way distance is at least 10.1 km. This is the same as the current situation. For the time being, the former season tickets will not be reintroduced. These tickets are based on a (currently no longer applicable) five-day commuting week. This means they are both too costly and no longer accepted for tax purposes, as costs can only be reimbursed per actual travel day, not more. We are looking into exceptions; these will partly depend on the deals that transport companies can offer us in the future.
- Travel using your own means of transport is reimbursed up to a maximum amount per month, in line with the amounts specified in the Commuting and Relocation Allowance Regulations as applicable until the scheme was suspended in November 2020. You can view the amounts per one-way travel distance on the website. The system automatically calculates the compensation depending on the actual number of days commuted. For example, if you live 25 km from work, the maximum reimbursement is €54 per month. If you commuted on 15 days, the system calculates a commuting allowance of 15/21.67 * €54 = €37.38 (21.67 is the average number of working days/month). The working-from-home compensation applies for the other working days.
As it is currently impossible to assume a fixed number of commuting days, we are looking into how the selection model can be applied for 2021. We’re also discussing raising the current commuting compensation with the Local Consultative Body. As soon as a decision has been made, we’ll let you know.
Working-from-home compensation
Provisions for the working-from-home compensation are set out in the cao-NU 2021, based on the following principles:
- An internet compensation of €25 per month, regardless of the level of employment and the number of days worked from home. This applies to all employees. Exceptions are temp workers, freelancers, student assistants, PhD candidates on scholarships, and students. You do not have to declare this amount; it will be added to your monthly salary.
- A compensation of €2 per day worked from home. In the system, you enter the number of days on which you actually worked from home during the preceding month. An amount of €2 * the number of days will be paid out on a monthly basis.
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