It doesn’t matter what job site you look at: most disclose salaries and minimum wage in “real money” ($) alongside expenses being listed in actual money (rent, groceries, taxes, etc.). However can you make employers pay people in RAM sticks? That would mean every real world expense is priced in TB, GB or MB.

Like this: x1 12GB per hour, you get 8 of them for a day equating to 96GB, work for 5 days straight ending up with 480GB (x40 RAM sticks) a week equal to a salary of 23.04TB per annum. What would it be like if people were paid in RAM sticks (“scrap metal”)? Are employers able to do that without having to deduct taxes?

  • CameronDev@programming.dev
    0·
    15 days ago

    Most(many? Unsure of any exceptions) tax systems will tax on the dollar value of the compensation. It can lead to very awkward situations if the value of the compensation is variable.

    Some people have been paid in stock, only for the stock to lose its value, yet the tax man only considers the original value. So I you get paid 1M in stock, and it craters, you still owe the tax man 300k (assuming 30% tax rate). The flip side is also true, if it goes up you still only owe 300k.

  • CombatWombat@feddit.onlineEnglish
    0·
    15 days ago

    Are employers able to do that without having to deduct taxes?

    No. You can pay employees their wages with things other than money, which is often called being paid “in kind,” but the person being so paid still owes taxes on the monetary value of their compensation. Being paid in RAM would be extremely inconvenient because you would still have to pay your taxes in your local currency.

  • TheFogan@programming.devEnglish
    0·
    15 days ago

    I mean in short, no paying in non currency is still taxed. Same problem that’s mostly glossed over when say you win a new car on a gameshow or similar, and why in reality the gameshows offer you cash value for the car instead. (because a broke ass family winning a top of the line car that they could never afford, still has to pay taxes on the prize… that they also could never afford). and yeah paying in something that is going up in price, means the company has to budget with either spending all of your sallary up front to buy what they are going to pay you massively up front… or know that they don’t actually know what they are going to pay you, then add in a concept like “at will employment” obviously you are motivated to quit or renegotiate if the price crashes, and they need to fire you or re-negotiate if the price skyrockets.

    On top of course of limited goods, because the company buying them will drive the price up further.