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Comment by nawgszy | Hacker News Reader

As a Canadian citizen who is working in California under a TN visa, I am interested in starting my own Canadian company and working on contracting / consulting work via said company.

All the money I make through said company would be paid to me in CAD and stay in my Canadian accounts, which I doubt really matters. I do not see why there would be legal issues with this, but this seems like a good opportunity to ask someone who might have a better picture.

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That could be viewed as self-employment which is prohibited and regarding how you get paid, you should contact a U.S. tax accountant because my understanding is that you still would be subject to the payment of U.S. taxes.

Thanks for your time. That's interesting. I guess this might be a little more nuanced than I thought.

So, despite the fact that the company would be a Canadian entity, I would be considered self-employed. Would a simple workaround be enough to thwart this, such as having a friend own the business, and proceed to hire me as a remote employee?

Not OP, but there's two concepts you're confusing: Residency and Tax Residency. Tax residency, for mortals, is normally where you live and work, so for you, even with the Canadian company, it'll probably be the US.

If I pay American taxes and not Canadian taxes, that's fine. A bit unfortunate because the bracket I'll be in is higher as is the tax rate, but not the end of the world.

The only real obstruction I'm worried about is the legality of doing that work for money. I have some friends who I could employ too, and lots of cash could just sit with the company, but if I can't work for that entity (legally) there's no point in starting it.

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