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Tax considerations of a pension plan amendment in a home office when calculating the company car usage 1% rule.

November 25, 2014 | 25,00 EUR | answered by Tobias Heinrich

Hello,

my workplace is being converted into a home office workplace. For this purpose, my employer has drafted an amendment to the employment contract with the following content:

Amendment to the Employment Contract

Between the company xxx, hereinafter referred to as the employer,
and yyy, hereinafter referred to as the employee,

The existing employment contract between the two parties mentioned above is amended as follows:

§ 1 Start of employment and activity

As of 01.12.2014, the employee is granted the right to work as a product manager in a home office, subject to revocation.

§ 3 Working hours

The contractual working hours of 8 hours on 5 days per week, from Monday to Friday, also apply in the home office. The distribution of working hours will be agreed upon between the employee and the supervisor. If there are operational requirements, the employee may need to work at the company premises in zzz.

§ 5 Miscellaneous
All other agreements of the employment contract remain unaffected.

In particular, I would like to know if the addition:
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"If there are operational requirements, the employee may need to work at the company premises in zzz.\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"
is unproblematic from a tax perspective, or if the tax office could interpret it as not a pure home office arrangement and still consider the commute from home to the workplace in my company car as a taxable benefit that I need to declare.

Should another clause be added to the amendment if I wish to continue using the 1% rule for tax purposes?

Thank you, M.V.

Tobias Heinrich

Dear inquirer,

In the context of an initial consultation and your payment of fees, while adhering to the regulations of this forum, I would like to answer your question.

It should be included in the employment contract that the assignments at the workplace do not exceed two full working days per week and do not exceed 1/3 of the agreed regular working hours. This prevents the creation of a first place of work at the company's headquarters.

Furthermore, the employer should explicitly refrain from assigning a location (in the sense of a first place of work).

I hope this adequately answers your question.

Best regards,
Tobias Heinrich