5 ms·

Huge hassle regarding taxes, legal details, etc. For example, if you hired someone in Israel, you are mandated to pay taxes, contribute to pension plan, etc. T

by ayende 3y ago

Huge hassle regarding taxes, legal details, etc. For example, if you hired someone in Israel, you are mandated to pay taxes, contribute to pension plan, etc. There are labor laws details that you need to know how to work through, etc. As a fine example, let's say that you have hired someone in Israel and they worked for you for 5 years. You covered payment and told them that they'll cover local taxes, etc. You now want to fire them. The following sequence of events happen: * They sue for wrongful termination (there is a particular process to follow) * They sue for missing pension contributions (the law says that if you didn't contribute to the pension, you are both civilly and criminally liable). And it can be that you are found to be effectively the "pension fund". * They sue for severance pay, which is calculated as 1 month of salary X years worked. That can be a huge surprise for you. That is leaving aside things like what happens around work accidents. Did you carry local insurance for that? Or are you on the hook for millions because of that? Those are all things that can be solved, but they are a major headache.

mozball 3y ago
Is there no app/api that abstracts all this away?
- rich_sasha 3y ago
  There are agencies that do this. They have international offices, they hire the remote-abroad employee as a real employee of theirs, and the hiring company contracts the agency as a B2B deal. The agency is on the hook for all these things. I don't know anyone who has ever used these so I guess they are expensive and awkward. To answer your question more directly, it's not an app but rather a conglomerate of international brick-and-mortar businesses, with legal departments, HR, payroll, insurance... Not lightweight.
  - chpatrick 3y ago
    We used remote.com for this and it was a pretty smooth experience actually. It's not "cheap" (around 600 per month per employee), but not massive relative to the cost of employing someone.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > are agencies that do this You're describing, in a nutshell, consulting.
    - KptMarchewa 3y ago
      No, consulting does recruitment themselves. This means they just deal with legally employing person you've recruited.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        If you want to abstract away the legality, you abstract away the legality. Consulting provides that. Everything else involves massive legal bills and is uncompetitive.
        rich_sasha 3y ago
        It's different. Consulting firms offer you someone. Maybe it's someone you pick, maybe it's someone they pick, but it is someone whose full time job is working as a consultant at said firm. Here, the firm finds someone they want to hire, and the agency deals with the legal nitty gritty. If you mean consulting as an individual, it's still different, for both parties, because you recreate an employment situation. The employee has legal employment, notice period, employment rights, insurance, yada yada. Employee has long-term commitment. If you're saying consulting as an individual is the same as.l employment, well... I guess then every two things are the same...
        wojciii 3y ago
        Consulting companies can also find a freelancer that they know and work with that will solve your problem without any hassles.
        KptMarchewa 3y ago
        They know vs you know. The "know" part here is a very important distinction. Maybe not for you, if you have cookie cutter problems.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
    In a previous role, I saw a whole team in Kyiv via an agency https://www.ciklum.com/ https://www.ciklum.com/ working for a company in London. Those guys were good. I hope they're doing OK.
- throwawayadvsec 3y ago
  there is if you pay
- KptMarchewa 3y ago
  deel.com
- gregjor 3y ago
  Lol, no. This is a people and legal issue, across national jurisdictions, not a technical problem to solve with an API.
nsoonhui 3y ago
But wouldn't employing them as _contractors_ would sidestep all these difficulties?
- pja 3y ago
  Most European countries have laws that punch through a contractor relationship if it looks indistinguishable from an employee/employer one. So you need a legal judgement that your contract is written appropriately to avoid that It's not hard necessarily, but you do need to get it right for each individual country. I can understand a company exec just not wanting the hassle. You can employ through contracting agencies in the target country that handle all this stuff, but you'll still have a certain amount of pain when you run into different countries' Ideas of what is appropriate behaviour when firing someone.
  - mejutoco 3y ago
    You can operate as a company. Those apply if you are an individual freelancer only.
    - pja 3y ago
      In the UK you can operate as a ltd company all you like, but it won’t make a jot of difference if HMRC decides that IR35 applies to your role. An “employer” can structure the contract to avoid IR35, but that’s precisely my point - now the “employer” needs local legal knowledge to maintain an arms length contractual relationship. (HMRC has also made the “employer” liable for IR35 problems: you can’t just punt the legal liability onto the “employee” and forget about it anymore.)
      - mejutoco 3y ago
        I am not so familiar with the uk. It seems you are right. From what I read it is possible, but you have a less beneficial arrangement, since you pay more tax. > You’ll need to ensure you pay the correct PAYE tax and National Insurance (NI) for any contract which is inside IR35 because you are, in the eyes of HMRC, an employee. You can, however, manage this through your limited company. https://www.crunch.co.uk/knowledge-tax/can-ir35-contractors-still-work-through-a-limited-company https://www.crunch.co.uk/knowledge-tax/can-ir35-contractors-... I wonder if 2 companies is enough to bypass this.
arp242 3y ago
We had a real problem with this a few years back when we hired two people from the Netherlands (from a Ireland-based company) and they immediately offered them a fixed position (instead of the more usual temporary contract), and they both turned out to be net-negative contributors: didn't actually get any work done, and created hassle/problems for others (one was referred by the other, and they were problematic in more or less the same ways, this was at an early stage before we realized the depth of the problems). But due to offering the "wrong" contract we also couldn't let them go, since that's very difficult (IMHO, too difficult) outside of gross misconduct, and is probably going to be expensive regardless. They also gave me such a contract by the way, as the first Dutch employee, but that wasn't an issue as no one wanted to get rid of me :-) I actually told them that was not a good idea, but after some turnover in the HR department it seems that got lost. Both left on their own account eventually, but taking in to account their wages, the increased workload for others, the fact that others literally quit the company because of these toxic assholes, by my estimation each individually cost the company well over a millions euro with nothing to show for it (I'm fairly certain zero code of one survived, and very little of the other).

by ayende 3y ago

mozball 3y ago

Is there no app/api that abstracts all this away?

rich_sasha 3y ago
There are agencies that do this. They have international offices, they hire the remote-abroad employee as a real employee of theirs, and the hiring company contracts the agency as a B2B deal. The agency is on the hook for all these things. I don't know anyone who has ever used these so I guess they are expensive and awkward. To answer your question more directly, it's not an app but rather a conglomerate of international brick-and-mortar businesses, with legal departments, HR, payroll, insurance... Not lightweight.
- chpatrick 3y ago
  We used remote.com for this and it was a pretty smooth experience actually. It's not "cheap" (around 600 per month per employee), but not massive relative to the cost of employing someone.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > are agencies that do this You're describing, in a nutshell, consulting.
  - KptMarchewa 3y ago
    No, consulting does recruitment themselves. This means they just deal with legally employing person you've recruited.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      If you want to abstract away the legality, you abstract away the legality. Consulting provides that. Everything else involves massive legal bills and is uncompetitive.
      - rich_sasha 3y ago
        It's different. Consulting firms offer you someone. Maybe it's someone you pick, maybe it's someone they pick, but it is someone whose full time job is working as a consultant at said firm. Here, the firm finds someone they want to hire, and the agency deals with the legal nitty gritty. If you mean consulting as an individual, it's still different, for both parties, because you recreate an employment situation. The employee has legal employment, notice period, employment rights, insurance, yada yada. Employee has long-term commitment. If you're saying consulting as an individual is the same as.l employment, well... I guess then every two things are the same...
        wojciii 3y ago
        Consulting companies can also find a freelancer that they know and work with that will solve your problem without any hassles.
        KptMarchewa 3y ago
        They know vs you know. The "know" part here is a very important distinction. Maybe not for you, if you have cookie cutter problems.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
  In a previous role, I saw a whole team in Kyiv via an agency https://www.ciklum.com/ https://www.ciklum.com/ working for a company in London. Those guys were good. I hope they're doing OK.
throwawayadvsec 3y ago
there is if you pay
KptMarchewa 3y ago
deel.com
gregjor 3y ago
Lol, no. This is a people and legal issue, across national jurisdictions, not a technical problem to solve with an API.

nsoonhui 3y ago

But wouldn't employing them as _contractors_ would sidestep all these difficulties?

pja 3y ago
Most European countries have laws that punch through a contractor relationship if it looks indistinguishable from an employee/employer one. So you need a legal judgement that your contract is written appropriately to avoid that It's not hard necessarily, but you do need to get it right for each individual country. I can understand a company exec just not wanting the hassle. You can employ through contracting agencies in the target country that handle all this stuff, but you'll still have a certain amount of pain when you run into different countries' Ideas of what is appropriate behaviour when firing someone.
- mejutoco 3y ago
  You can operate as a company. Those apply if you are an individual freelancer only.
  - pja 3y ago
    In the UK you can operate as a ltd company all you like, but it won’t make a jot of difference if HMRC decides that IR35 applies to your role. An “employer” can structure the contract to avoid IR35, but that’s precisely my point - now the “employer” needs local legal knowledge to maintain an arms length contractual relationship. (HMRC has also made the “employer” liable for IR35 problems: you can’t just punt the legal liability onto the “employee” and forget about it anymore.)
    - mejutoco 3y ago
      I am not so familiar with the uk. It seems you are right. From what I read it is possible, but you have a less beneficial arrangement, since you pay more tax. > You’ll need to ensure you pay the correct PAYE tax and National Insurance (NI) for any contract which is inside IR35 because you are, in the eyes of HMRC, an employee. You can, however, manage this through your limited company. https://www.crunch.co.uk/knowledge-tax/can-ir35-contractors-still-work-through-a-limited-company https://www.crunch.co.uk/knowledge-tax/can-ir35-contractors-... I wonder if 2 companies is enough to bypass this.

arp242 3y ago

We had a real problem with this a few years back when we hired two people from the Netherlands (from a Ireland-based company) and they immediately offered them a fixed position (instead of the more usual temporary contract), and they both turned out to be net-negative contributors: didn't actually get any work done, and created hassle/problems for others (one was referred by the other, and they were problematic in more or less the same ways, this was at an early stage before we realized the depth of the problems). But due to offering the "wrong" contract we also couldn't let them go, since that's very difficult (IMHO, too difficult) outside of gross misconduct, and is probably going to be expensive regardless. They also gave me such a contract by the way, as the first Dutch employee, but that wasn't an issue as no one wanted to get rid of me :-) I actually told them that was not a good idea, but after some turnover in the HR department it seems that got lost. Both left on their own account eventually, but taking in to account their wages, the increased workload for others, the fact that others literally quit the company because of these toxic assholes, by my estimation each individually cost the company well over a millions euro with nothing to show for it (I'm fairly certain zero code of one survived, and very little of the other).