[znpy]

  Shopify did not respond to Business Insider's request
  for comment. It's unclear if whether the $1,000 amount
  is a bonus employees will see in their paychecks, or 
  whether workers will need to expense the items they
  purchase.

Does it make any actual difference? Yes, it could theoretically impact somebody's tax bracket, but do we need that level of detail?

Also someone is blaming a lot of companies with the "why wait?" theme.

The thing is, moving to all remote is not a company does overnight. Particularly with matters of security perimeters, there's a lot of planning that has to be done. Corporate firewalling on premise is a thing... Corporate firewalling a laptop at home is a completely different matter. Assumptions you can make about network in the office vanish once the employee is at home.

Maybe the wait was to implement at least some basic VPN connectivity, proper firewalling and stuff like that?

[aka1234]

Not to be glib, the difference between $1k on the check and $1k expensed doesn't make a difference if you're well paid. If you're considering how it'd impact your tax bracket, it doesn't matter to you.

But for the customer support reps? It might make all the difference in the world. Most of those employees won't have an extra $1k laying around that they can forego until finance gets around to finally reimbursing them for their expenses. For the average customer service rep, the question will likely boil down to:

1.) Can I not pay a bill (or three) right now so I can take advantage of the program?; or 2.) Do I not participate in the program.

A couple years ago I had similar dilemma with expensing around ~$400 for something. At the time I made about $50k/year and was supporting two households in two separate cities. It took a lot of juggling household budget(s) to wait for the 4 weeks it took to get that money back. That was a lot of added stress when I was already working paycheck-to-paycheck.

Today? I make over double that. If I had to put out $1k, I could do so without blinking. But I live a VERY different life now than even 2 years ago.

[xyzzyz]

It makes large difference if you're well paid. You can only buy ~$650 worth of stuff from $1k in paycheck, but you can expense full $1k of stuff in the other scenario. Of course, you could argue that if you're well paid, you can spend additional $500 of your own gross pay to top up that $650 to full $1k, but clearly Shopify doesn't think this way, because if it did, it wouldn't give any extra $1k in the first place, and just tell their employees to get what they need and pay for it themselves.

[gamblor956]

Tax guy. I second this comment. It makes a huge difference for the non programmers how this is done from both an employee cash flow and tax perspective.

At my previous job, I was asked to go to an international networking event in Europe. The firm would have reimbursed my expenses. I was prepared to go until I discovered that the trip would cost $22,000. The firm wasn't quick enough with reimbursements for me to justify paying for it upfront, so I had to pass.

[jka]

If it's an expense program, then there could be policies and constraints which limit the types of purchases employees can make.

That could make a significant difference in terms of usage and spending of these funds.

There doesn't seem to be any official announcement of the program on Shopify's blog or social media so far.

It's probably best to assume that journalists are acting in good faith to uncover the full story and to discover details which might be relevant for their audience either now or retrospectively when people look back on these events in future.

[jaybeeayyy]

Hopefully, however it is handed out, other companies start to think about doing something similar. I just hope this works out well for the employees of shopify!