Hi, I am currently filling in the ZH taxes for 2020 and under berufskosten it says the following:

Berufskosten und Corona
Unselbständig Erwerbende können in der Steuererklärung 2020 ihre Berufskosten (Fahrkosten, Mehrkosten der Verpflegung, Pauschalabzüge für übrige Berufskosten und Aus- und Weiterbildung) so geltend machen, wie sie ohne Massnahmen zur Bekämpfung der Covid 19-Pandemie angefallen wären. Insbesondere müssen diese Berufskosten nicht um die Covid-19 bedingten Home Office-Tage gekürzt werden. Diese Handhabung schliesst im Gegenzug einen Abzug für Home Office-Kosten aus.
Diese Regelung (übliche Berufsauslagen ohne Kürzung um die Home Office-Tage) bedeutet per Saldo in der Regel höhere Abzüge zu Ihren Gunsten.

This reads confusingly to me. Surely it doesn't mean that if you only used public transport for 3 months out of 12 you can still claim public transport deductions for all 12 months? It looks like meals, and such are still the full 12 months. What have people done here?

Maybe silly question but when I googled around there was no clear answer here.

Yep. You claim as if you had been going to the office in normal times..... but you can't claim home office expenses as a result.

Wait, so let me get this clear: I have only gone into the office for 4 months orso, so only have 4 months of monthly pass receipts. Yet I can still claim for 12 months, 8 of which I haven't paid for? This is much-much more than any home-office costs that I could possibly deduct.

As an unaffected tax-payer I would not be happy about that

Yep, that's what the last sentence says - it should work in your favour.

Well the unemployment got an extra 120 days added, etc....

The universal income proposal might not have been as expensive after all

Indeed, also meals. It's a way to payback for additional work from home costs and make it somewhat simple. There was a thread on this not too long ago, you might find it if you search.

Correct.

Many Cantons have introduced this rule for 2020 taxation in order to reduce hassle for both parties. Very difficult to verify how many days each employee has gone to the office vs worked from home. As we didn't really have a real lockdown, some people have been going to the office pretty much as usual in 2020.

Thanks a lot all! It is quite clear in this case then.
I tried searching for the other post on this as suggested by kri but couldn't find anything.

https://www.englishforum.ch/finance-...eductions.html

"Tax deduction" search term...