Expense reimbursement is always tax-free for the employee and fully deductible for the company, whereas any increase in compensation from $100k-$150k can carry an effective tax rate over 50% due to progressive marginal rates and phase-outs.
Particularly for these types of ambiguous use items, I would expect savvy companies to be maximizing this benefit, not minimizing it.
The cost for an employer gets cheaper as an employee makes more money, not more expensive. There are no increasing marginal rates for employer payroll taxes- just the employee state/federal income taxes.
It depends how you measure the cost to the employer. When you're talking about increasing employee compensation in the $100k - $150k range, I look at the total cost to end up with $1.00 in the employee's savings account. The point is that increasing compensation is extremely inefficient in the $100k - $150k range. That's why, for example, US engineers getting raises in that pay range will often find it doesn't change much in their living situation. "I got a $10k raise" but really take-home pay just increased $4500.
Often times paying out compensation in cash like this is just too expensive. It's a weird concept that the cost of cash is a curve mostly dictated by tax rates. When the IRS is taking 55% at certain points in the curve, you get much bigger bang for the buck by offering other benefits, like maximizing expense reimbursements. (phone, internet, qualified commuting expenses, food & entertainment, etc.)
I love California. This is the 300th reason why I will never leave the state. It is so good about protecting workers ( when compared to the rest of the US. )
Interesting point of view. Employers beyond a given scale want to LEAVE California because of just how ridiculous things can be here. And so, you like CA because of your perceived (or real) benefits to employees when, in reality the rules that keep piling up are making jobs leave the state and, in effect, cost employees dearly. In other words, employees are not losing small amounts or benefits here and there but rather their jobs and the ability to maintain a standard of living as everything else in the state ads cost to doing business here.
Remember that widely reported employment numbers count minimum wage jobs and highly-paid jobs the same way. In other words one could say that CA is gaining, not losing, jobs yet when you dig into the data you discover that jobs that pay well are leaving and the ranks are being filled by people taking pay and standard of living cuts.
It's interesting to come to the realization that the average Joe and Jane has no clue as to what a business equation looks like, how businesses run and how costs and legislation affect numbers.
You can't keep taking from people and businesses forever without consequences. This isn't a politically charged statement, this is simple mathematics. Eventually we succeed at killing off our own source of income when they decide to pull-up anchor and move to more reasonable shores (sometimes literally). Both businesses and people have choices.
People keep saying that and, honestly, compared to what it actually means to see companies leaving countries and regions, there's much talk and little evidence of a substantial change in trends.
The big software companies and well-funded startups continue to flock to the state. Obviously not as much as before for the simple reason that the Valley is only so big and living expenses are a very substantial part of the cost, but that has little to do with employee regulation (which is comparatively weak in the US compared to many other developed nations for which, apparently, it ain't much of a problem) and more to do with the cost of living in other areas such as housing demand and infrastructure.
Other states and countries should consider that a good working environment, not just in the office but in the protections afforded to employees, is pretty damn attractive for talented individuals.
Californian tech companies aren't there for its "worker protection" laws. They're there because of the talent, which Silicon Valley has a monopoly on because of network effects.
Sure, but the talent itself does consider those things. Educated immigrants certainly do; I know several people who have chosen to migrate to the EU over the US in no small part due to the social safety net and better work-life balance, or decided that they'd rather stay where they are in the 3rd world over moving to the US.
The world is a different place than it used to be in the dotcom boom; tech talent has a lot more options nowadays and those things add up.
You are welcome to move to a place that permits employees to be abused.
The hardest problem I have is hiring good people: Not taxes.
If a business wants to move to out of the largest economy in the U.S. -- well then it is making an interesting choice that other businesses will take advantage of.
Funny thing is that Rick Perry has been trying oh so hard to get businesses to move to Texas... but if the best employees are in California then that means a business is trading lower taxes for lower quality workers. That too is an interesting choice.
You are thinking locally. Nobody cares where Tesla or Toyota build their cars. Having your business located "in the largest economy" isn't a factor for a huge number of businesses.
Another way to put it is: You can build a massively successful business anywhere in the country. There is no particular magic in California in this regard. What is different here is that it cost more to simply exist in this state. And there's far more to it than wages at play.
But the costs of running a business are much more than taxes and regulations.
Here is the TL;DR:
Businesses want the benefit of low taxes (lower immediate expenses) with the benefit of high taxes locations (government provide services that the business would otherwise have to pay).
But low tax utopia fails if no one pays high taxes needed to provide the services.
It's not just taxes, it's everything. Doing business in California, depending on what you do, can be very difficult. If you are a website designer none of this is likely to make sense. If, on the other hand, you happen to own an manufacturing facility as I do, yeah, you get it and I don't have to explain it.
Quick example. There's something in the County of Los Angeles called "Business Property Tax". It is officially considered a "privilege tax", meaning, you pay for the privilege of doing business within and through the County of Los Angeles. All of it is nonsense but the "through" part is particularly sickening. Even if your business is in Arizona, if you DRIVE THROUGH LA to do business you are, in theory, supposed to pay for this tax. Thankfully they can't keep track of such things yet so they are not pissing all over this country asking for money.
But wait, what is this "Business Property Tax"?
Is it a tax levied on the building you own or lease?
Nope. Not at all.
Do you own a desk? A computer? A printer? A trash can? A fax machine? Did you change the carpets at the office you rent (Did you do any tenant improvement work)? Do you have desk lamps? Chairs? Shelves?
Yes? OK, hand over the receipts to the County of Los Angeles, you have to pay TAXES on your business property.
Even if the computer you are using is yours --not owned by the business-- you can technically be required to pay this tax on it because it is used by the business and controlled by the business to a degree.
Utopia? Well, it's very real. And it is absolutely fucking unbelievable. It isn't a lot of money, somewhere in the order of 1$ annually. But the concept that the County of Los Angeles grabs a 1% tax FOREVER on that laptop you bought for your business on an annual basis is, well, sorry, only raw sewage dumped on this page could begin to describe what I think of taxes like this one. It's theft, that's what it is.
Because the tax is small people have better things to do than to fight it. And, because a lot of voters are predisposed or easily convinced to be anti-business trying to get it repealed is likely to fail as smart politicians would quickly weaves all kinds of lies about greedy business men wanting to take food away from poor children. Theft.
And like that there are many other little needles California loves to stick into you depending on the type of business you are in. A friend of mine leases about four million dollars of manufacturing equipment.
This is why some of the comments I read on HN get me riled up at times. It is easy to tell they mostly come from twenty-somethings who have not been exposed to the real world enough to get a nice tan bordering on a burn and truly understand things.
We need to aggressively cut down on taxation and remove nearly all incentives for politicians to tax us. If we don't we end up with hundreds of little 1% taxes that, collectively, only serve to pay for their pensions and wasteful spending and do nothing, absolutely nothing, for society. Next time you get gas anywhere pay attention to how much and how many taxes and fees you are paying and then try to square that away with the condition and disrepair of our roads and bridges.
> You are welcome to move to a place that permits employees to be abused.
I had to reply to this one separately.
Sorry brother, this statement is ridiculous on the face of it. No state, city or town in the US is characterized by having rules allowing employees to be abused. That's just nonsense. I suggest you might want to stop exaggerating as it does little to help one take your point of view seriously. No law in the US allows employees to be abused. California isn't magical in any way in this regard. Stop spinning.
I'm confused. Granted, the whole article surprised me.
It seems to imply that - up to now - employees were sometimes required to use their own devices for _work_ and for their employer and .. had to pay that out of their own pocket.
Ignoring the bigger fear that you seem to have about California's future, how is this particular case not a direct improvement - and braindead if you think about it. I just assumed this would be the way it works ~everywhere~. Company requires you to use your car/phone/internet connection and .. needs to pay for the use of your car/phone/internet connection.
Wrapping up: Are you seriously unhappy about this particular ruling/article or is your fear a general thing and only tangentially related/merely targeted at the praising comment above you?
Sorry, you misunderstood, my fault. I was only reacting to the comment about California being a place where employees are not abused. One could very well argue that CA abuses everyone, not just employees. How much do you pay in taxes, all taxes, not just income tax? It's huge. Take a a look at our freeways, they are utterly destroyed and being maintained badly. There's a portion of the 5 I travel every day where you have about two miles of seriously messed up road. The two right lanes are kidney killing. This is a tax. How? Your car gets beat up and your cost of maintenance goes up. Where is all that money we pay in taxes to maintain our highways? Stolen to pay ridiculous pensions to government workers.
With regards to the phone ruling. Well, I've been paying a portion of my employee's phone bills for, well, I don't know, two decades. Didn't know we had to legislate common sense and decency.
Defamation is an injury to the reputation or character of someone resulting
from the false statements or actions of another
[...]
In order to be defamatory the statement must be, of course, false.
false statements
if Yishan lied, then yes -- there is defamation. Otherwise, it seems little different than the rest of the US.
BTW, any competent hr department, or legal, or even co-employers like many startups use , will have had you build a paper trail -- emails, notes on conversations, a pip -- to justify firing for cause.
handwaving (what employers) handwaving (CA is ridiculous; no, things are ridiculous) handwaving (jobs are leaving the state) handwaving (CA is losing well-paid jobs based on absolutely no data or proof whatsoever) handwaving (because reasons... NO, BECAUSE MATH)
> in reality the rules that keep piling up are making jobs leave the state
In actual reality, while opponents of the California's regulatory and tax regimes like to keep saying things like that, California has been adding jobs at far above the national rate. [1]
> In other words one could say that CA is gaining, not losing, jobs yet when you dig into the data you discover that jobs that pay well are leaving and the ranks are being filled by people taking pay and standard of living cuts.
Surely, if you have found that by digging into the data, you can link or cite the data and explain the methodology you used to find that.
I don't even understand why this was necessary, with both my and my husband's employer in Nevada, I am able to get a discount on the cell bill plus I get to claim my cell phone bill for taxes. To us, at least, seems fair already..
> Consider these factors when building a compliant reimbursement policy [... long and incomplete list ...]
Those regulations are micromanaging trivia. Is that really the proper role of government? In addition to the cost of the phones, companies have to hire additional people just to design, build and manage a "compliant reimbursement policy."
The "role of government" phrasing makes this sound more anarcholibertarian than I think you meant it, but it's really not that notable.
The use of "compliant" is a little misleading. This is a court ruling, not a regulation. It just says that you have to pay for your employee's expenses, which is sort of a "duh" thing to me. Companies have "compliant reimbursement policies" for travel and purchasing and client schmoozing already, and this need be no different or more complicated.
If employees have to pay for stuff you have to pay them back. That doesn't sound like over-regulation to me.
Those aren't regulations, those are recommendations of how to deal with the straightforward law requiring employers to pay all necessary expenses incurred in the course of employment by the law firm who is using the ruling and the underlying law as a focus of efforts to drum up business.
The source article is an information page from a law firm, and the reason they do this kind of information page is as a way of generating business by both (1) creating a perceived need for legal services, and (2) portraying themselves as experts in the area where they have created the perceived need.
If I were running a company, I'd just give you a corporate phone that the company completely pays for. This seems like a no-brainer.
BYOD (bring your own device) always seemed like a non-starter to me. Do you really want your employer to have any access to your personal device? I sure wouldn't.
BYOD does not mean the employer has access to the device, it means that the device is used for all work related purposes that would require such a device. In some jobs, that might require giving the employer some control, but that is not nessasary.
The main benifits I see are: not having to carry two phones, and having more freedom to choice what device you use.
Company lets you decide what device you want, pays the bill and - allows you to use it privately.
I gave my mobile contract to my wife, only use my 'business' phone now. Private calls are explicitly allowed (most calls are free anyway, in this contract). Some common sense is required: Calling a dating line is probably stupid, talking to relatives in somewhere-over-the-sea is out as well. The only 'real' limitation I have is that I should avoid excessive texting (I .. write one sms a month, maybe, anyway. Nothing that concerns me), due to the way the contract works.
So:
- device of my choosing
- only one device on me
- I call my friends and family using said device
Yes and no. I've heard of multiple occasions where (accidentally, at least - though I'm sure it could be enforced by more callous types) people have linked their phones to corporate Exchange/BB servers. Leave the company and IT duly remote-wipes the device to ensure there's no corporate data left on it.
Eh. When I was doling out benefits, I just paid them a cell phone allotment as part of their petty cash bonuses. No reason to force them to use a specific device.
Why does this even need a court decision? How would you defend the position, that you force additional work-related expenses onto your employees but are not required to compensate them?
Because there's a difference between "work related" and "work mandated". How I get to work is my problem (unless its out of office, then my employer pays the extra cost). But if they expect me to use a phone during work they will either need to provide me one or reimburse my expenses.
You seem quite ignorant about labor laws. If you don't want to use the other analogy, here's another one. Employers are not required to pay for employee uniforms even if they're mandated for the workplace.
Wearing a uniform is part of the job, but your employer is not required to pay for it. Pizza chains aren't required to reimburse their delivery drivers for mileage. Explain.
I can only speak for the UK here, but commuting to work is your expense, as when you apply for a job, you know where the offices are, if it's going to cost you significant time/money to commute, you need to make a decision on whether the salary is enough before accepting the job.
If you're required to drive anywhere as part of your work, mileage is paid by the company. Our sales force have a geographic area they cover, if they live outside it, mileage to get there isn't covered by the company, but once inside their area it is. I'm not sure if it's the law, but I've not heard of anywhere that doesn't do very similar to this.
Same with phones, or additional travel (i.e. to a different work site), they're either paid in advance by the company, or expensed back to them by the employee.
> Wearing a uniform is part of the job, but your employer is not required to pay for it.
Under federal law, for FLSA non-exempt employees, if the employer chooses to have the employee pay for uniforms, the additional cost cannot reduce the employees effective pay below minimum wage, so, in effect, the employer is required to pay. [1]
Under California law, it is more straightforward -- the employer is required to pay for mandatory uniforms, period. [2] And, in fact, for "all necessary expenditures or losses incurred by the employee in direct consequence of the discharge of his or her duties, or of his or her obedience to the directions of the employer". [3]
> Pizza chains aren't required to reimburse their delivery drivers for mileage.
They are in California (under the same law cited above.)
Maybe it is just a difference between American and European thinking. At least here in Germany the employee is essentially responsible to be at the factory gate in time and with suitable clothing, everything else is the business of the employer.
Does that mean I need to bring in my own desk, pen, paper, copier, etc..? Just because you might have the materials and equipment at home does not mean you have to provide it to your employer without some type of compensation.
Right, because employees can take a bus, ride a bike or even walk. But if work is calling or requiring me to call and use up minutes that is a requirement. There is no alternative.
An employer making employees pay for a plan to use cell phone minutes in a non-incidental way is amazing; I don't know how that can stem from any place but fuck you, I've got mine. Though Amazon is claiming they shouldn't have to pay employees for waiting in line for security checks, for up to a claimed 30 minutes [1].
edit: I recalled a situation at a previous employer for an ops person who had significant work usage of his cell phone; our employer didn't want to pay for it. I'm not sure how that got resolved. Though this employer had pictures of naked women as part of the interview process so, you know, all class. (I didn't get that for my screen, but others did.)
I've had colleagues refuse to give their phone number out unless management say they will pay towards the cost of the phone. Also stops the out of hours calls.
Well, as per the example in the article, what about the situation where an employee already has a certain plan that covers the business use, so that the cost is already paid for anyway.
Or, how about an employee who wants to use their own phone so that they only have to carry one (BYOD) and not a company-supplied one.
I guess you're just being facetious in your 'ahmahgahd we're being repressed by The Man' but there are circumstances enough where both ways of looking at it are reasonable.
"employers that require employees to use their personal devices to conduct business as a condition of employment will need reimbursement plans or face litigation risk."
So what does this mean? Likely not triggered by simply storing my mobile number on the internal groupware contacts card.
However, if I'm in services or sales, and I travel a lot - I would now be in a position where I need to be available - would that be considered "as a condition of employment"?
Examples would make this a lot easier to navigate.
Unrelated, but the ridiculous banner on that website takes up half of my screen, and a good portion of it as I scroll down, the purpose of which is beyond me. "We noticed you are in the United States"... no I'm not.
63 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] threadParticularly for these types of ambiguous use items, I would expect savvy companies to be maximizing this benefit, not minimizing it.
Often times paying out compensation in cash like this is just too expensive. It's a weird concept that the cost of cash is a curve mostly dictated by tax rates. When the IRS is taking 55% at certain points in the curve, you get much bigger bang for the buck by offering other benefits, like maximizing expense reimbursements. (phone, internet, qualified commuting expenses, food & entertainment, etc.)
Remember that widely reported employment numbers count minimum wage jobs and highly-paid jobs the same way. In other words one could say that CA is gaining, not losing, jobs yet when you dig into the data you discover that jobs that pay well are leaving and the ranks are being filled by people taking pay and standard of living cuts.
It's interesting to come to the realization that the average Joe and Jane has no clue as to what a business equation looks like, how businesses run and how costs and legislation affect numbers.
You can't keep taking from people and businesses forever without consequences. This isn't a politically charged statement, this is simple mathematics. Eventually we succeed at killing off our own source of income when they decide to pull-up anchor and move to more reasonable shores (sometimes literally). Both businesses and people have choices.
The big software companies and well-funded startups continue to flock to the state. Obviously not as much as before for the simple reason that the Valley is only so big and living expenses are a very substantial part of the cost, but that has little to do with employee regulation (which is comparatively weak in the US compared to many other developed nations for which, apparently, it ain't much of a problem) and more to do with the cost of living in other areas such as housing demand and infrastructure.
Other states and countries should consider that a good working environment, not just in the office but in the protections afforded to employees, is pretty damn attractive for talented individuals.
The world is a different place than it used to be in the dotcom boom; tech talent has a lot more options nowadays and those things add up.
You are welcome to move to a place that permits employees to be abused.
The hardest problem I have is hiring good people: Not taxes.
If a business wants to move to out of the largest economy in the U.S. -- well then it is making an interesting choice that other businesses will take advantage of.
Funny thing is that Rick Perry has been trying oh so hard to get businesses to move to Texas... but if the best employees are in California then that means a business is trading lower taxes for lower quality workers. That too is an interesting choice.
Another way to put it is: You can build a massively successful business anywhere in the country. There is no particular magic in California in this regard. What is different here is that it cost more to simply exist in this state. And there's far more to it than wages at play.
Here is the TL;DR:
Businesses want the benefit of low taxes (lower immediate expenses) with the benefit of high taxes locations (government provide services that the business would otherwise have to pay).
But low tax utopia fails if no one pays high taxes needed to provide the services.
Longer explanation here:
http://sworddance.com/blog/2014/10/23/california-is-awesome-...
and here:
http://sworddance.com/blog/2014/10/23/low-business-tax-utopi...
Quick example. There's something in the County of Los Angeles called "Business Property Tax". It is officially considered a "privilege tax", meaning, you pay for the privilege of doing business within and through the County of Los Angeles. All of it is nonsense but the "through" part is particularly sickening. Even if your business is in Arizona, if you DRIVE THROUGH LA to do business you are, in theory, supposed to pay for this tax. Thankfully they can't keep track of such things yet so they are not pissing all over this country asking for money.
But wait, what is this "Business Property Tax"?
Is it a tax levied on the building you own or lease?
Nope. Not at all.
Do you own a desk? A computer? A printer? A trash can? A fax machine? Did you change the carpets at the office you rent (Did you do any tenant improvement work)? Do you have desk lamps? Chairs? Shelves?
Yes? OK, hand over the receipts to the County of Los Angeles, you have to pay TAXES on your business property.
No bullshit. Here:
http://articles.latimes.com/1997-01-21/business/fi-20589_1_p...
and here:
http://lacountypropertytax.com/portal/contactus/ppa.aspx
Even if the computer you are using is yours --not owned by the business-- you can technically be required to pay this tax on it because it is used by the business and controlled by the business to a degree.
Utopia? Well, it's very real. And it is absolutely fucking unbelievable. It isn't a lot of money, somewhere in the order of 1$ annually. But the concept that the County of Los Angeles grabs a 1% tax FOREVER on that laptop you bought for your business on an annual basis is, well, sorry, only raw sewage dumped on this page could begin to describe what I think of taxes like this one. It's theft, that's what it is.
Because the tax is small people have better things to do than to fight it. And, because a lot of voters are predisposed or easily convinced to be anti-business trying to get it repealed is likely to fail as smart politicians would quickly weaves all kinds of lies about greedy business men wanting to take food away from poor children. Theft.
And like that there are many other little needles California loves to stick into you depending on the type of business you are in. A friend of mine leases about four million dollars of manufacturing equipment.
This is why some of the comments I read on HN get me riled up at times. It is easy to tell they mostly come from twenty-somethings who have not been exposed to the real world enough to get a nice tan bordering on a burn and truly understand things.
We need to aggressively cut down on taxation and remove nearly all incentives for politicians to tax us. If we don't we end up with hundreds of little 1% taxes that, collectively, only serve to pay for their pensions and wasteful spending and do nothing, absolutely nothing, for society. Next time you get gas anywhere pay attention to how much and how many taxes and fees you are paying and then try to square that away with the condition and disrepair of our roads and bridges.
They are doing exactly what you want.
Seriously. Move if it is so bad. Otherwise, realize that paying taxes is part of the cost of doing business.
I had to reply to this one separately.
Sorry brother, this statement is ridiculous on the face of it. No state, city or town in the US is characterized by having rules allowing employees to be abused. That's just nonsense. I suggest you might want to stop exaggerating as it does little to help one take your point of view seriously. No law in the US allows employees to be abused. California isn't magical in any way in this regard. Stop spinning.
It seems to imply that - up to now - employees were sometimes required to use their own devices for _work_ and for their employer and .. had to pay that out of their own pocket.
Ignoring the bigger fear that you seem to have about California's future, how is this particular case not a direct improvement - and braindead if you think about it. I just assumed this would be the way it works ~everywhere~. Company requires you to use your car/phone/internet connection and .. needs to pay for the use of your car/phone/internet connection.
Wrapping up: Are you seriously unhappy about this particular ruling/article or is your fear a general thing and only tangentially related/merely targeted at the praising comment above you?
With regards to the phone ruling. Well, I've been paying a portion of my employee's phone bills for, well, I don't know, two decades. Didn't know we had to legislate common sense and decency.
if Yishan lied, then yes -- there is defamation. Otherwise, it seems little different than the rest of the US.
BTW, any competent hr department, or legal, or even co-employers like many startups use , will have had you build a paper trail -- emails, notes on conversations, a pip -- to justify firing for cause.
handwaving (what employers) handwaving (CA is ridiculous; no, things are ridiculous) handwaving (jobs are leaving the state) handwaving (CA is losing well-paid jobs based on absolutely no data or proof whatsoever) handwaving (because reasons... NO, BECAUSE MATH)
In actual reality, while opponents of the California's regulatory and tax regimes like to keep saying things like that, California has been adding jobs at far above the national rate. [1]
> In other words one could say that CA is gaining, not losing, jobs yet when you dig into the data you discover that jobs that pay well are leaving and the ranks are being filled by people taking pay and standard of living cuts.
Surely, if you have found that by digging into the data, you can link or cite the data and explain the methodology you used to find that.
[1] http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article260418...
[1] https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/2014_California_Tax_Rates_and_E...
Those regulations are micromanaging trivia. Is that really the proper role of government? In addition to the cost of the phones, companies have to hire additional people just to design, build and manage a "compliant reimbursement policy."
The use of "compliant" is a little misleading. This is a court ruling, not a regulation. It just says that you have to pay for your employee's expenses, which is sort of a "duh" thing to me. Companies have "compliant reimbursement policies" for travel and purchasing and client schmoozing already, and this need be no different or more complicated.
If employees have to pay for stuff you have to pay them back. That doesn't sound like over-regulation to me.
The source article is an information page from a law firm, and the reason they do this kind of information page is as a way of generating business by both (1) creating a perceived need for legal services, and (2) portraying themselves as experts in the area where they have created the perceived need.
If I were running a company, I'd just give you a corporate phone that the company completely pays for. This seems like a no-brainer.
BYOD (bring your own device) always seemed like a non-starter to me. Do you really want your employer to have any access to your personal device? I sure wouldn't.
The main benifits I see are: not having to carry two phones, and having more freedom to choice what device you use.
Company lets you decide what device you want, pays the bill and - allows you to use it privately. I gave my mobile contract to my wife, only use my 'business' phone now. Private calls are explicitly allowed (most calls are free anyway, in this contract). Some common sense is required: Calling a dating line is probably stupid, talking to relatives in somewhere-over-the-sea is out as well. The only 'real' limitation I have is that I should avoid excessive texting (I .. write one sms a month, maybe, anyway. Nothing that concerns me), due to the way the contract works.
So: - device of my choosing - only one device on me - I call my friends and family using said device
If you're required to drive anywhere as part of your work, mileage is paid by the company. Our sales force have a geographic area they cover, if they live outside it, mileage to get there isn't covered by the company, but once inside their area it is. I'm not sure if it's the law, but I've not heard of anywhere that doesn't do very similar to this.
Same with phones, or additional travel (i.e. to a different work site), they're either paid in advance by the company, or expensed back to them by the employee.
Under federal law, for FLSA non-exempt employees, if the employer chooses to have the employee pay for uniforms, the additional cost cannot reduce the employees effective pay below minimum wage, so, in effect, the employer is required to pay. [1]
Under California law, it is more straightforward -- the employer is required to pay for mandatory uniforms, period. [2] And, in fact, for "all necessary expenditures or losses incurred by the employee in direct consequence of the discharge of his or her duties, or of his or her obedience to the directions of the employer". [3]
> Pizza chains aren't required to reimburse their delivery drivers for mileage.
They are in California (under the same law cited above.)
[1] http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs16.htm
[2] http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_deductions.htm
[3] http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection....
edit: I recalled a situation at a previous employer for an ops person who had significant work usage of his cell phone; our employer didn't want to pay for it. I'm not sure how that got resolved. Though this employer had pictures of naked women as part of the interview process so, you know, all class. (I didn't get that for my screen, but others did.)
[1] http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-10-02/security-che...
Or, how about an employee who wants to use their own phone so that they only have to carry one (BYOD) and not a company-supplied one.
I guess you're just being facetious in your 'ahmahgahd we're being repressed by The Man' but there are circumstances enough where both ways of looking at it are reasonable.
So what does this mean? Likely not triggered by simply storing my mobile number on the internal groupware contacts card.
However, if I'm in services or sales, and I travel a lot - I would now be in a position where I need to be available - would that be considered "as a condition of employment"?
Examples would make this a lot easier to navigate.