[AltoLXI]

Originally Posted by EV NXT

There are no tax breaks for setting up or working out of IT parks (notified SEZ areas) as of now. The tax holiday that was available to IT companies situated in notified SEZ’s has seen its sunset years over.

The only concession available now is in the refund of customs duty on import of equipment available as a drawback scheme from Customs provided one is located in a notified SEZ. The only precondition placed by the customs is that the equipment imported on reduced duty cannot be sold without prior permission of the customs and if sold, the duty concession availed has to be remitted back.

Additionally, prior permission has to be taken from the SEZ authorities / Customs to take out assets on which duty concession has been availed out of the IT park. This would be needed for laptops and is usually given.

Both these preconditions (sale / taking out of the park) will not interfere with a WFH scenario. So I do not think tax breaks would be a reason to discontinue WFH. It would be, as indicated above, management / political pressure as of now.

Some additional clarifications in attached PDF.

200318_A_Nasscom_FAQs_on_WFH.pdf

[ashokrajagopal]

Originally Posted by EV NXT

There are no tax breaks for setting up or working out of IT parks (notified SEZ areas) as of now. The tax holiday that was available to IT companies situated in notified SEZ’s has seen its sunset years over.

I am a tad patchy with the exact numbers, but the description is slightly different.

There are no NEW tax breaks for setting up from the SEZ Developers unit angle from 2020 or so.
The incorporated SEZ units carry a break of 100% for 5 years, 50% for the next 5 years and something extra afterwards.
Assuming it is set up in 2019, the 100% break carries forward for 5 years until 2024.

This is in addition to the Export duty exemptions, Service tax exemptions, and VAT in some cases.

To add on, the SEZ sunset clause change was brought in some time before as well. Given Covid, expecting further breaks for SEZ some time in future is not too far fetched either.

[Gansan]

I own an apartment in a complex that contains 120 apartments in total. Post pandemic, currently about 40 apartments are vacant. My tenant gave notice for vacation today. She is a pensioner, not an IT employee. But she is moving to a vacant apartment that is larger than mine at only a marginally higher rent. There is attrition inside the complex! I am wondering when I will fix another tenant under the circumstances.

Things will come back to normal only if a considerable number have to work from office. Also, the complex is located right in front of a prominent engineering college (Madras Institute of Technology). I am hoping once counselling for next year admissions are completed and the college starts functioning normally, there will be demand for rented accommodation from students/parents coming in from other cities and towns. I have to keep it locked for at least a few months as things stand.

[aargee]

Originally Posted by Samurai

If someone wants to WFH, they must stay in a place with at least 99% uptime Internet. That should be non-negotiable

Sir, if you may allow me to add some more MUST...
1. Uninterrupted power supply atleast to keep laptop & WiFi router running for 6-8 hours
2. Secondary internet line or use mobile data

And good to have will be...
1. Silent workspace (literally hate BG noises during the meetings)
2. Dedicated & comfortable workspace to SIT(no laying in bed or work from bathroom!!) for long hours

[EV NXT]

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

The incorporated SEZ units carry a break of 100% for 5 years, 50% for the next 5 years and something extra afterwards.
Assuming it is set up in 2019, the 100% break carries forward for 5 years until 2024.

None of these will impact WFH and the tax concessions will be available to the unit even if WFH continues provided the necessary permissions have been taken and the offices within the SEZ are retained.

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

This is in addition to the Export duty exemptions, Service tax exemptions, and VAT in some cases.

Software exports are exempt from export duty, Service tax and VAT regardless of whether an unit is located within a SEZ or not so this will not have an impact either.

[Samurai]

The pandemic was once in a century event, and companies took extraordinary steps to ensure that employees can work from home during repeated lockdowns. It was a large scale unplanned business continuity operation.

However, that time as passed. But the pandemic also proved that WFH can work effectively for large swathes of roles. And lot of employees realised that they can work from their native towns, without having to waste couple hours in commute every day and living a tiny PG rooms. Now quite a number of them want WFH as a perk.

Originally Posted by aargee

Sir, if you may allow me to add some more MUST...
.
.
And good to have will be...

It is not up to employer to mandate. As I mentioned earlier:

If an employee is not able to work effectively from home, then he/her doesn't get to work from home. There will be plenty of reasons for that, connectivity, interference from family, no working space, etc. It doesn't matter why, if the employee is less effective working from home, then WFH is not for him/her.

The above is not employer's responsibility either.

It was always employee's responsibility to show up for work. Whether they take the bus, train or car isn't the domain of the employer. Same goes for WFH, if they want it as a perk. Those who want WFH, must ensure they have good Internet, power backup, silent work-desk, AC or whatever else environment they need to work effectively from home. That is not employer's responsibility. If the employee cannot arrange/manage it, he/she must show up at office.

Those who want to come back to office... Well, I don't think anyone is stopping them.

[am1m]

If I slack off at work, while working physically from office- say I don't show up at meetings, or I show up late always and walk out during several meetings, and my tasks remain on the board for days without showing any progress - certainly some action will be taken.

So shouldn't that same action be taken when an employee is always offline while working remote as well? Being 'present' at work is entirely an employee's responsibility and the company is completely justified in taking action if that part of the deal is not met- either physically or while working remote. There's absolutely no debate about that- the company pays you a salary, you need to deliver work. With the number of tools and processes in place there are several different ways to track output, surely several better than just 'x hours spent in front of an active screen'.

What I don't understand is why companies want to get in to the 'always supervise' mode in the first place. Surely a manager's time is more valuable and better spent on strategic tasks? If a employee is going to slack off, they will do that anyway, whether in office or remote. Wouldn't it be better to just fire such employees?

I don't see why arguments for WFH being a viable model are being perceived as arguments for slacking off or to avoid meeting colleagues. Far from it! I think the biggest reason to push the WFH model (where the job role allows it of course) is to de congest the IT corridors and to stop normalizing things like badly run PGs, unrealistic real estate prices in cities like Bangalore, "10-month deposit" and other stupid rules that landlords near IT parks get away with because till now the demand was overwhelmingly high. And the argument is never to 'force' anyone to work remote. Those who want to continue going to office, I don't see why anyone would stop them.

Anyway, the overwhelming sentiment seems to be 'most Indian employees can't work without being supervised'. I don't think that is true, but it fits in nicely with the HR and management narrative, so I don't see remote work being accepted or widespread anytime soon.

[poloman]

Originally Posted by am1m

If I slack off at work, while working physically from office- say I don't show up at meetings, or I show up late always and walk out during several meetings, and my tasks remain on the board for days without showing any progress - certainly some action will be taken.

If more and more people start doing this, what action you are supposed to take? Why do you think most companies are calling back employees on site if productivity has gone through the roof? Even with WFH companies like TCS, CTS seeing 30-40% attrition. So either way people will move.

There are major problems with some people going to office and some people not. We had few meetings in this format. The discussion was mostly limited to the people in the room. This will soon develop to two sets of working styles, timings and grouping.
Hybrid work model will more challenging than 100% WFH.
https://time.com/6117090/tim-cadogan...ceo-interview/

Today morning the entire Teams ecosystem is down. People are struggling to conduct meetings in my org.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by poloman

If more and more people start doing this, what action you are supposed to take?

You mean if more people start slacking off while physically present in the office?

Why would that happen? There will always be employees who slack off, either in office or while working remote. I think those will always be a very small percentage.

Originally Posted by poloman

There are major problem with some people going to office and some people not.

Excellent point. It will certainly happen that those who choose to go in to work will get more visibility, be more likely to land better assignments and when you have two sets of people, the remote workers can get sidelined. There are ways and processes to overcome this, but it is ultimately up to the company. Agreed that for most companies this overhead may not be worth it. And if the company has enough employees wiling to come in physically, there is no reason for them to take this trouble.

Originally Posted by poloman

Today morning the entire Teams ecosystem is down. People are struggling to conduct meetings in my org.

That's an IT infrastructure issue. Again, not a flaw of the WFH concept.

[ashokrajagopal]

Originally Posted by EV NXT

None of these will impact WFH and the tax concessions will be available to the unit even if WFH continues provided the necessary permissions have been taken and the offices within the SEZ are retained.

WFH was technically possible always, I mean decades back. Here, what you have mentioned as permissions is changes to existing SEZ laws and it is not that simple.

Let me uncomplicate.
The SEZs that started in the last decade have Tax concessions (100%,50% and other permutations) extending over to the next decade.
The business model is dependent on these concessions being active.
The reason these concessions are provided is because Govt(s) want to build urban centres with additional jobs and other development around the centres.
Come Covid and WFH, there are no incentives for Govt(s) to support concessions if the offices are namesake.

Software exports are exempt from export duty, Service tax and VAT regardless of whether an unit is located within a SEZ or not so this will not have an impact either.

That was a typo, apologies, I meant import duties, ie. customs etc that you had mentioned earlier along with Service tax etc for input.
The equipment including laptops, accessories and some software even fall in the gambit of import, and these are supposed to carry duties if there are no exceptions.

For simplicity, let me put all these into a single basket called subsidy.

The subsidy for SEZ based large operators is core to their business model.
Governments provide subsidies for a reason.
If the Urban centre based revenues don't come in, the subsidy cannot be sustained.

[EV NXT]

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

The business model is dependent on these concessions being active.

No business can survive if the business model is dependent on government subsidies.These subsidies are available only during the first 10 years. They are good enough to set up and grow the business initially but after a certain period (ten years is long enough) the business should be able to survive on its own.

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

The reason these concessions are provided is because Govt(s) want to build urban centres with additional jobs and other development around the centres.

The original reason for these concessions was to help the IT industry. There will, as a fall out, be other related developments to the economy but that would not be the primary reason for the government concessions.

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

Come Covid and WFH, there are no incentives for Govt(s) to support concessions if the offices are namesake.

Covid has been a major disruptor in more ways than one. I do not see the government adding to the disruption by removing the concessions because of the Covid scenario. As can be seen by the Nasscom circular on measures to facilitate WFH during Covid, the government is actually supporting WFH.

But you are right, the original objectives for the concessions may not be entirely achieved. As to whether the government will withdraw the concessions on an already battered economy, I don’t think so.

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

The subsidy for SEZ based large operators is core to their business model.

I have to disagree with you. The subsidies are not substantial but the associated headaches are.

Let me explain: Once laptops / servers / furniture are imported through this route, we are stuck with them and cannot dispose them virtually for life. With life of laptops / servers being around 2-3 years, companies get into a bind when it is time for a replacement as the laptops cannot be sold or disposed off. So most companies would rather import the equipment paying the import duty. The savings in import / excise duty just isn’t worth bureaucratic headaches that it comes with.

[dragonfire]

The company I work for had WFH even before the lockdown, and was capped at around 50% of the total time. But people were viewed with suspicion if they took WFH too often. That will change thanks to the last 2 years of work from home.

Also, now it has become much easier to work from home than before because now we have better connectivity and most of us have, thanks to the pandemic, have set up an office space at home.

True, companies are calling employees back to office. But even they realize that it is not a sustainable model. Now that more people have realized that they can work effectively from home also, it is going to be one of the bargaining chips when applying for a new job.

I'd like to go back to office but want to have the option to work from home whenever I want.

[ashokrajagopal]

Originally Posted by EV NXT

No business can survive if the business model is dependent on government subsidies.These subsidies are available only during the first 10 years. They are good enough to set up and grow the business initially but after a certain period (ten years is long enough) the business should be able to survive on its own.



The original reason for these concessions was to help the IT industry. There will, as a fall out, be other related developments to the economy but that would not be the primary reason for the government concessions.



Covid has been a major disruptor in more ways than one. I do not see the government adding to the disruption by removing the concessions because of the Covid scenario. As can be seen by the Nasscom circular on measures to facilitate WFH during Covid, the government is actually supporting WFH.

But you are right, the original objectives for the concessions may not be entirely achieved. As to whether the government will withdraw the concessions on an already battered economy, I don’t think so.



I have to disagree with you. The subsidies are not substantial but the associated headaches are.

Let me explain: Once laptops / servers / furniture are imported through this route, we are stuck with them and cannot dispose them virtually for life. With life of laptops / servers being around 2-3 years, companies get into a bind when it is time for a replacement as the laptops cannot be sold or disposed off. So most companies would rather import the equipment paying the import duty. The savings in import / excise duty just isn’t worth bureaucratic headaches that it comes with.

I am going to keep this short because we are circling on the same thing hogging the discussion.

The point is not about generally what would be good business, what was historically the rationale etc.
Theoretically all this is fine( about building a business without subsidy etc), but the angle is not that.

There are already commissioned SEZs all over Bangalore, Hyderabad, Noida etc. These are set up, right up to 2020.
Which simply means these are all set up with the subsidy taken into consideration, modelled on a decade of growth with the subsidy in picture.

In practice, right up to 2029.

Just like the companies in there, Govt also has a modelled plan in terms of urban development.

It is logical for the government to ask the companies to respect the agreements of actually running the offices or walk out of the contract on all kind of subsidies.
It is logical for the companies to comply because their current plan, the current model is accounted based on subsidies.

It is also logical for the companies to just make up some BS about synergy of physical working etc when the actual reason is that they need the tax breaks and Govts will only respect the contract if the offices are physically run.

[EV NXT]

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

It is logical for the government to ask the companies to respect the agreements of actually running the offices or walk out of the contract on all kind of subsidies.

This assumption is incorrect. Giving below the government notification exempting companies from complying with the conditions of working within the notified SEZ’s.

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

It is logical for the companies to comply because their current plan, the current model is accounted based on subsidies.

This isn’t applicable either because of what is stated above.

[vj_torqueaddict]

I see some discussion coming up about wfh, so wanted to add my experience in my current org.

We announced permanent wfh globally for all offices back in June 2020 when the pandemic hit us. Our founders thought it’s the right time to go remote as our software products are designed for collaborating. This way we can better dogfood our cloud products as well.

There are detailed policies in place to make sure everyone is covered. For example if some people are in office, the meetings will be held on zoom, so that people doing wfh do not feel left out. All Performance OKRs should be measurable. There are many more w.r.t compensation which I will skip.

Overall it has been smooth sailing for these 2 years as a whole. Even for people who were on boarded remotely as well. We made sure it goes smoothly for them.

Cheers!