4 ms·

I suspect what it really boils down to is laws. Taxation works different outside of US borders, and there may be export restrictions to consider. It's a valid p

• jobs_throwaway 4y ago
  good luck to any company that wants 1) a competitive remote workforce and 2) to monitor employee movements and locations at all times
  • smileysteve 4y ago
    the companies may care less. The country/state an individual is working from has the potential to arrest and deport the individual. Or fine and garnish wages for unpaid taxes.
    • galangalalgol 4y ago
      For countries they have visas to go on, but moving between states or within the eu zone, how would they even know? If I have a po box or perhaps even a street address in WA or TX (no state income tax) but live in an airbnb somewhere in CA, how can the state figure it out? The employer probably can't either since you could run their vpn over your vpn.
      • bmhin 4y ago
        I mean, taxes are a real thing and you have to pay them based on where you (the employee) live and do work. In the US for state income tax, it's a confusing mix of both lived location and worked location in various amounts by governments with a "claim" and with plenty of exceptions to go around. Consulting companies have had to deal with it forever (and states have "handled" forever), because you live in Miami, doing work for a company based in LA, and you travel to your client in NYC for 3 days a week for the whole year (60% of your income "generated" there). This is now a complicated Florida, New York, California scenario. So the choice isn't Big Brother companies who want to know where you are at all times and respectful companies who allow you to get your work done how you want. It's between companies who are following the applicable tax laws or those who are not. A company that is structurally opting to not follow laws seems untenable. A company is a legal construct in many ways. Whether or not the employee can commit something like tax fraud is perhaps a less interesting question, because, yeah, you can probably cheat on your taxes.
        • galangalalgol 4y ago
          That makes sense, but in the consulting case the employee has a motive to file expenses so the employer know. In this case it seems unreasonable for the employer to be heavily fined when they have no real way to determine their employees whereabouts. And because it would likely take an audit to catch the employee, when it does eventually happen it will be a larger hit to the business.
          • smileysteve 4y ago
            The error in your thinking is that many consultancies are aware of their legal nexus, and actively protect it, so ignorance is not a valid defense for any sensible company. Talk to people who work for a big consulting firm, they've been taking "tax holidays" for the last 70+ years to ensure they don't spend more than 50% of their time away from their home base. These companies are no fools; they wouldn't eat productivity and billable hours if they felt the state wouldn't care.
            • galangalalgol 4y ago
              I get that the company wants to know and protect itself. I'm just not sure how they can after reading this article. Short of requiring all employees to check in physically periodically.
      • deleted 4y ago
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      • ska 4y ago
        What you are basically saying is, as an employee, "is it possible to commit fraud in this way". The answer is obviously yes. It's a completely separate question whether or not tax law should be the way it is.
      • smileysteve 4y ago
        > For countries they have visas to go on That's precisely the point; Many workers are not applying for work visas, which makes them outlaws and subject to deportation. Some countries have digital nomad visas with 0% tax rates now, but not most. > If I have a po box or perhaps even a street address in WA or TX (no state income tax) but live in an airbnb somewhere in CA, how can the state figure it out? Hypothetically, CA is financially incentivized to find that out, how is the the question. But, if they do then they are going to 1) audit 2) if you don't respond to audit and tax -- arrest 3) at the same time suit the employer, especially if they have any operations in CA for not declaring your work properly.
  • treis 4y ago
    Hey look! Another place where breaking the law can be a competitive advantage
  • ska 4y ago
    The problem isn't the company, it's typically the state/country. It's a compliance problem for the company, it's not about controlling their employees. From the employee point of view, it may put you on the wrong side of both visa and tax laws wherever you are sitting.
• speakfreely 4y ago
  It's the employee's responsibility to maintain a current W-4 to indicate their tax withholding, unemployment insurance obligations, and local liabilities. Employers who try to police this more than requiring employees to maintain up to date W-4 are just opening themselves up to liability they otherwise wouldn't need to suffer.
  • gamblor956 4y ago
    Requiring an updated W-4 does not subject an employer to an additional liability. Very importantly, the employer is already subject to additional liability by the very fact of the employee working in another state/jurisdiction. It's irrelevant from the perspective of the employer's legal liabilities whether the employee goes through the formality of updating their W-4. But note that failure to update a W-4 after moving to another state or country is generally considered grounds for for-cause termination.
• Inhibit 4y ago
  In the US we generally tax based on where you live, not where you temporarily reside. Federally if you're a US citizen you're welcome to live anywhere you'd like but the IRS will still require their payment. States are usually based around where you are more than half the year. But that's likely simple to show. If you're actually not there they don't have much of a complaint.
  • Pasorrijer 4y ago
    Nope. This gets really messy for consulting companies, where employees "work" at the client location 3-4 days a week, 2-3 weeks a month. We had to track and report what states we worked in and what days, down to the billing hours, and then in some cases had to file tax returns in some of those states. Also, all of the partners were required to file taxes in every state where the company earned income, which worked out to something like 46 states and 5 countries.
    • bombcar 4y ago
      Read up on the accounting required for baseball players. It's absolutely insane and sometimes comes down to "were they on the roster" or "in the stadium" or "on the lineup" and so forth.
  • abduhl 4y ago
    Income is taxed where it’s generated in America, not based on residency (at the state level, the feds always get their pound of flesh). Many people don’t follow this rule but it’s smoothed over by reciprocal tax agreements between states. Companies are usually good about tracking this stuff and paying taxes appropriately, employees are usually not but the company pays the taxes correctly and so the employee lucks into doing their taxes correctly. Consultants will often find themselves confused after receiving a mean letter the first time they fuck this up because most people think as you do.
    • jimmaswell 4y ago
      Each state has different rules. For one example Illinois doesn't tax remote workers of companies in Illinois who don't live in Illinois.
• deleted 4y ago
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