9 ms·

This should probably be expanded to something more like, "don't hire remote employees living in a jurisdiction whose employment laws you don't know." The fact

• Melatonic 5y ago
  We are also living in a time of unprecedented amounts and ease of access to true remote work - are we really surprised the laws are behind the times?
  • mgbmtl 5y ago
    Hiring freelancers, on the other hand, is usually pretty simple, since none of those laws apply. The main risk, say, as a Canadian, is if I visit a US-based client, then I can't be officially "working while in the US", but it's OK if I do it remotely. I freelance for my local Canadian company, and if my company sends me to the US, then it's fine, because the client pays my company, who then pays me. The US company is not paying me directly.
    • jleyank 5y ago
      Without a valid work visa, they might not even let you (Canadian going to us) into the country. We’ve had salesman turned back when doing training cuz the border guards thought a fee was involved. Sales support was ok.
      • mgbmtl 5y ago
        Yep you have to be very careful in how you express your intent. I had a friend turned back because he said "the client pays me", when he actually meant "the client pays my company, and my company pays me" (he had an incorporated 1-person company, not freelancer). When I was purely freelancer, I would say "I'm going to see a client, but it's only social, I'm not paid". Customs would frown, but let me pass. I've even had an agent argue "so you have nothing else to do on a weekday, and your work-friend either?" to which I said "yep, we're computer nerds", and he let me pass.
• api 5y ago
  > The fact states can reach outside their own jurisdiction is pretty insane in my opinion. Isn't there some stuff about the Federal government governing interstate commerce? Of course IANAL.
  • arrosenberg 5y ago
    The Interstate Commerce Clause allows the Congress to regulate interstate commerce. This is not that. If you hire an employee in a different state, you are establishing a business nexus in that state and subjecting yourself to its' laws and regulation - it's not a conflict between two states, it's just between you, the business owner, and the state which you have now established a nexus in.
• vkou 5y ago
  What's insane is that some people believe that just because they do something in a state with computers, they are somehow not bound by the state's laws.
  • bpodgursky 5y ago
    Because the business engagement not meaningfully in that state, if the only interaction is with a an employee with a computer screen in the state. I get, from a legal perspective, that that's not fully aligned with all court precedent, but it's OK to call it dumb that CA has any say over this situation.
    • pavlov 5y ago
      Does the employee pay tax to California? Then they're employed in California. That doesn't seem complicated.
      • bpodgursky 5y ago
        Nobody is questioning that the employee should pay income tax. The question is whether the 1-person remote "business" has a nexus in CA and should be the treated the same as a company with a warehouse and 500 employees. I'm not sure what you're missing here. I'm calling it dumb and inefficient. Yes, CA seems to have the legal right to set up a dumb system. That doesn't mean it's a Good Thing.
        • dragonwriter 5y ago
          > The question is whether the 1-person remote "business" has a nexus in CA It does; that nexus consisting of 100% of its labor force working in the state. > and should be the treated the same as a company with a warehouse and 500 employees That's not the question, since a company with a warehouse and 500 employees in California is not treated the same, as it is subject to a whole lot of rules and mandates that a single-employee remote-only foreign-HQ’d business is not.
        • vkou 5y ago
• kayodelycaon 5y ago
  Except it is their jurisdiction. If you have an employee in a state, you need to comply with all the regulations in regards to employees. For example, if you’re based in Tennessee and you if hire an employee in Washington and decide you only need to follow Tennessee minimum wage policy, Washington has every right to fine you or take you to court under Washington law.
  • devoutsalsa 5y ago
    Because it’s untenable.
    • Dangeranger 5y ago
      What is untenable exactly? That a state is provided the ability to enforce their laws? National governments are allowed to enforce laws outside their own borders, such as intellectual property and copyright. While challenging to enforce, it is possible.
      • giantg2 5y ago
        "National governments are allowed to enforce laws outside their own borders, such as intellectual property and copyright." I believe those are done through treaties. I'm not sure how the federal government weighs in on this since they have the authority on interstate commerce, which this falls under.
        • Dangeranger 5y ago
          The states also signed laws, akin to treaties at the time, agreeing to allow other states to enforce certain domains of law within their jurisdiction. This is part of how the federation of the United States of America came into being.
          • giantg2 5y ago
            Are these general or specific? I know some laws have been passed like a treaty between states, especially ones that border each other. The ones I know are very specific.
• dragonwriter 5y ago
  > The fact states can reach outside their own jurisdiction is pretty insane in my opinion If they can reach there, legally, it is, by definition, their jurisdiction, whether or not it is their territory, but, in any case, this is about regulation of work within the clearcut territorial boundaries of the state, so there isn't any reaching outside going on. There is a foreign business reaching inside and getting upset that when doing so what they do in that context becomes subject to the laws of the jurisdiction they voluntarily reach into in order to exploit business opportunities available there.
  • wombatpm 5y ago
    Taxes too. I have a relative who works as an auditor for the California Department of Revenue. Her job is to go into business in other states and determine if they are paying sufficient CA sales tax on their business.
    • dragonwriter 5y ago
      > I have a relative who works as an auditor for the California Department of Revenue No such department exists in California state government. Major state-level tax bodies in California are the Board of Equalization, the Franchise Tax Board, and the Department of Tax and Fee Administration. Sales and Use Tax is handled by the last.
• giantg2 5y ago
  Just wait until you realize what states can do with filial responsibility. Your parent could be living in PA and run up a care bill at a nursing or living facility. Then even if you live in another state, they can stick you with the bill. You're not under their jurisdiction, nor do you have the power to force your parent to move to another state. You have no choices, no power.
  • MertsA 5y ago
    Ooof, I knew about filial responsibility laws and the nursing homes abusing them but that sounds downright unconstitutional to enforce them on citizens without some kind of personal voluntary nexus to that state.
  • causi 5y ago
    How in the world could such laws stand up to constitutional scrutiny?
    • giantg2 5y ago
      New to US law? (Just kidding) This sort of stuff is really common. Judicial complaints, discipline, and files are so secret that you can't get access to them even if there's exculpatory evidence in them. They were not made that secret by the legislature in most cases, but rather by the judiciary themselves (conflict of interest much?). The arguments used to support such secrecy don't even stand up to mild scrutiny. The main reason they cite is that disclosing complaints and discipline would undermine trust in the system. However, that would only be true if inappropriate action were being taken on those complaints. How about police holding a charge against you they know is incorrect and carries pretrial restrictions? I feel this violates state and federal protections such as the 8th Ammendment's restriction on unusual punishment (because you can't just publish someone you know is innocent of the charged crime) and violations of the rules of criminal procedure. I've seen this happen, and the state police say that it's within their rights to hold a charge that is incorrect and imposes pretrial restrictions. A civil rights attorney I contacted said it was a violation of our rights, but the courts don't care if your rights are violated unless there was substantial financial damage. I also reported it to the DOJ since they have a division that will sue states to change policies, patterns, or practices that violate constitutional rights. I'm sure my submission went right in the shredder. They have so many important things to look at that they don't even care about this. I had a prosecutor that had the information that it was an incorrect charge and our rights were violated. They also acted outside of the rules of criminal procedure to make sure the court wouldn't talk to us, blocking our ability to secure remote accommodation for our witness (a violation of the Bar's professional standards and an overreach of their authority given the rules of procedures did not allow for this). Guess what. The Bar will not even investigate misconduct claims against prosecutors unless the court declares misconduct occurred. So what are you investigating if you'll only look into after someone else made the determination? Worthless. I had a recording of a magistrate yelling at the defense, showing bias against the defense (magistrate was a retired police chief and showed blatant favoritism for the trooper), and they violated the state constitution that guarantees defendants the right to be heard when he denied the request to hear a valid petition to dismiss, responding simply with "That's not gonna happen". I submitted a complaint for his behavior. I mean, the yelling was actually an example of misconduct given on the disciplinary board's site. You would think that a textbook example would be investigated. The only response I got was that there was not enough evidence to confirm any misconduct, which would include the uncurteous conducted listed in their site (yelling). How much evidence do you need beyond a recording and witnesses? I could go on. The point is, nobody gives a shit about your rights (or mine) - not law enforcement, not the judiciary, none of the agencies/boards that supposedly oversee them. If nobody enforces your rights, them do you actually have any?
• danabrams 5y ago
  One way to look at it is that taxes and fees like this are the cost of living in such a place. California is a very desirable place to live and to employ people, so they can charge through the nose, both in terms of taxes and bureaucracy, but also in terms of housing prices. Low-tax sunbelt states are less desirable, ergo they have to compete on price, be it taxes, housing costs, or regulations. If Texas or Florida provided amenities that people wanted and a workforce as desirable as California, either there would be a massive influx to those states, 5, 10 million people a year, or they could charge people a lot of the pleasure of living or employing there.
• rndgermandude 5y ago
  I think this law is meant to prevent cases where some company hires sizable amounts of employees in California (25% of payroll as the blogpost states) and then shafts the state with some "loopholes". Think of a company with hundreds of employees in California, but which is technically a Delaware corporation. I get that a state would want to prevent scenarios like that, and I think it's somewhat reasonable. I'd argue that a company with a sizable amount of employees in a state indeed can be said to have a business presence there. What's unreasonable is the lack of "minimums". California apparently tried to be reasonable by having the 25% rule, but failed miserably (maybe by design) by not considering very small companies, like the company from the article. The franchise tax - in that amount and considering the lack of revenue - seems unreasonable too. I don't know what paperwork is involved, but the 42 pages mentioned for a zero-revenue company with 1 employee sounds not just unreasonable but outright Kafkaesque. A part of the blame goes to the author for not knowing the laws involved before hiring, but the major chunk of the blame, at least in my opinion, indeed goes to the state for creating absurd laws in the first place.
  • causi 5y ago
    not just unreasonable but outright Kafkaesque. That's pretty accurate for most of what the California state government does. For example, crushing the young and disadvantaged between a lack of housing availability due to rent control and a lack of new housing construction due to restrictive regulations and zoning.
• SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago
  The employee working in the state (in this case California) is a physical nexus of the company within that state. There's no reaching outside the state's jurisdiction, the company literally has a physical presence inside the state! Just because it's not using commercial real estate (offices) or doesn't have customer-facing shops there doesn't magically make the employees working there non-physical.
• akvadrako 5y ago
  What's wrong with 1099s? Employment is really a special arrangement that only makes sense with governmemt intervention, like enforcing overtime or health care or something.