<story><title>Travelling to work &apos;is work&apos;, European court rules</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34210002</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>robzyb</author><text>Fun fact: In Japan most companies will pay for your public transport ticket.&lt;p&gt;Never heard any suggestion of discrimination based on this though.&lt;p&gt;Although time cost &amp;gt; public transport cost.</text></item><item><author>phowat</author><text>Thankfully, because I wouldn&amp;#x27;t want to be discriminated against if I chose to live further away from work so I could afford a nicer, bigger place.</text></item><item><author>lfowles</author><text>&amp;gt; Time spent travelling to and from first and last appointments by workers without a &lt;i&gt;fixed office&lt;/i&gt; should be regarded as working time, the European Court of Justice has ruled&lt;p&gt;Oh well.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>patio11</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Fun fact: In Japan most companies will pay for your public transport ticket.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is primarily a tax optimization, FWIW.  If I pay you 10万 in cash, I owe the government ~１万 and you owe the government maybe 3万 or so (depends heavily on bracket).  If I pay you 10万 for your train ticket, neither of use owes the government additional taxes.&lt;p&gt;Thus, if we come to the agreement that your labor is worth 35万 a month to the company, it is in our mutual interest to characterize that as 25万 of salary and 10万 of &amp;quot;reasonable travel expenses.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;There exists a spectrum of how aggressive companies are on this one.  Some play things very safe and use the actual cost of the shortest public transportation between your house and the office, going to &lt;i&gt;elaborate&lt;/i&gt; lengths to calculate that.  Some say &amp;quot;We assume, unless you tell us differently, that transportation costs you more than 10万 a month, and will accordingly compensate you for the first 10万 of it.&amp;quot;  (The reimbursement is only non-taxable up to １０万.)&lt;p&gt;(Edit to add: １万円 = 10k yen = ~ $100.  Much like our Indian friends count things in lahks and crores, Japanese breaks numbers lower than a hundred million into a count of 10^4 rather than a count of 10^3.)</text></comment>
<story><title>Travelling to work &apos;is work&apos;, European court rules</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34210002</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>robzyb</author><text>Fun fact: In Japan most companies will pay for your public transport ticket.&lt;p&gt;Never heard any suggestion of discrimination based on this though.&lt;p&gt;Although time cost &amp;gt; public transport cost.</text></item><item><author>phowat</author><text>Thankfully, because I wouldn&amp;#x27;t want to be discriminated against if I chose to live further away from work so I could afford a nicer, bigger place.</text></item><item><author>lfowles</author><text>&amp;gt; Time spent travelling to and from first and last appointments by workers without a &lt;i&gt;fixed office&lt;/i&gt; should be regarded as working time, the European Court of Justice has ruled&lt;p&gt;Oh well.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Cthulhu_</author><text>It makes sense though, in societies where you don&amp;#x27;t or can&amp;#x27;t live where you work. Why would you want to work for an employer when part of your money goes to getting to work? On the other side of the coin, if an employer can get good people from all around by just paying for the commute, that&amp;#x27;s only going to be good for them. Plus there&amp;#x27;s tax benefits; if you have 200 &amp;#x2F; month in travel expenses, either the boss pays it, or pays you an extra 400 (which comes down to 200 with imaginary taxes)&lt;p&gt;My GF had a job in the next city, thanks to roadworks and the like a 1.5 - 2 hour commute, unpaid; she worked 40 hours a week, plus 15-20 hours for commuting. IIRC a third of her crappy wage was spent on even getting to and from work, let alone the time. She&amp;#x27;s now self-employed in her own town, works 20ish hours a week, and makes about the same or a bit more.&lt;p&gt;Commuting is not something one does with pleasure, generally speaking.</text></comment>