Hidden Issues—Working from Home
It was a quick fix to deal with the pandemic—pack up your gear and work from home. That allowed many service companies to adapt to the new world we were plunged into—but it has consequences. Previously we have looked at technical issues but there are legal, tax and liability issues that companies are ignoring or have yet to consider. Ignorance is not an acceptable legal excuse. You could face serious issues as an employer or employee.
What is a Workplace

When you get a job you are assigned a place to work, often a desk with a phone and computer. This is all ‘owned’ by your employer, not you. Your employer must pay insurance to cover liability for accidents, and the liability is enshrined in workplace legislation. This means that, if you suffer an injury while at work you are covered for medical and earnings loss by such as Worksafe BC.
When you are at home after work, this coverage is not in force and injury is generally your fault. You will not get compensation if you injure your back in a badly designed chair at home.
What about when you are home- working? Is that home or work? The legal implications are untested in much of Canada but other countries choose to define space used at home for the purpose of work where mandated by the employer as if it were ‘owned’ by the employer. The key issue is whether your home working is mandated or voluntary.
Voluntary Home Use
If an employee decides, for their own convenience, to work part time from home then they retain ‘normal’ office space and working at home is informal and at their risk.
Mandated Home Use
If, however, your employer ‘requires you’ to work from home (as happened during COVID19) then different rules apply. The mandating is a variation in the contract of employment and there is a CRA tax form (T2200) that employers normally provide to employees certifying that. Employers can provide an allowance to cover expenses and there may be tax benefits available (for which employees need to complete a T777 as part of their tax return).
Some employers might reduce base pay to reflect that employees no longer need to spend time and money travelling to the downtown office. This reduction may be justified as helping to offset the extra cost of supporting home-based workers.
The space used at home now counts as your official workplace and employers are likely liable for injury to their employees while working there.
In some countries, employers are expected to survey home working environments and certify that they meet required standards. They may also provide professional desks and chairs to reduce injury risks from use of low quality items.
On December 15th, the CRA introduced, for the 2020 tax year, a flat-rate deduction for home working of $2 per day up to a maximum $400. They also introduced simplified versions of the forms for when the flat rate does not cover a particular case.
Paperwork
Where home working is mandated, employees need to consider which option suits them best when doing their 2020 tax return. HR departments need to make sure all government forms are completed and that work at home policies have been developed and clearly communicated to staff.
If you’d like to comment on this article or explore these ideas further, contact me at peter.
This article was published in the
January 2021
edition of The TMC Advisor
- ISSN 2369-663X Volume:8 Issue:1
©2021 TMC Consulting