Anger about the home office regulation
Cross-border commuters from Italy are threatened with the loss of the tax advantage
Certain cross-border commuters will have to accept financial losses from Wednesday. The reason for this is the end of an agreement between Switzerland and Italy.
Published: 01/31/2023 at 18:09
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Updated: 27 minutes ago
From February 1st, Italian cross-border commuters will no longer be allowed to work from home.
A regulation on home office work for cross-border commuters between Switzerland and Italy expires on Wednesday. If employees living in Italy do not cross the border to Switzerland every day after February 1, they will lose their tax advantages.
Several Italian unions have expressed concern that the agreement will expire. Employees who worked part-time from home from February 1st would now be taxed in their country of residence and would thus lose the “status of cross-border commuters within the framework of the applicable regulations”. This results in higher taxation of wages.
Demands for extension of the agreement
In addition, the unions complain that with the end of the agreement, regulations on social security for employees and companies will no longer be observed. The reason: The EU has extended the flexible application of European regulations on social security law for cross-border commuters in telework until June 30, 2023 if the threshold of 25 percent of the working hours worked remotely is exceeded.
The 5 Star Movement (Movimento Cinque Stelle, M5S) also called on the Italian government to extend the agreement immediately. “We hope that an agreement can be reached with all political forces on this important step so that we can protect the right to work for our fellow citizens in Lombardy,” said M5S President Giuseppe Conte in a statement.
The agreement between Switzerland and Italy was reached in June 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. She made sure that cross-border commuters working from home were not disadvantaged for tax purposes. Around 77,000 Italian cross-border commuters work in Ticino, many of them in the healthcare sector. (SDA)