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Comment by vbsteven | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how some of the all remote companies handle the legal side of things when it comes to paying salaries and contracts.

I've been working as a (partly remote depending on customer) freelancer/contractor for 5 years with my own legal entity setup in Europe to do invoicing and handle my finances. I'm not willing to give that up yet but the thought of working for an all remote company for a longer period than the typical 3 to 6 month contract sounds interesting.

Are these full remote companies flexible in regards to this? Are they open to me keeping my own business entity and invoicing them while still being regarded as a full member of the team?

edit: For example on the Gitlab jobs page and salary calculator they clearly state that for my home country they expect me to be an employee of their Gitlab BV entity which is a no-go for me.

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One option is to outsource this to another company, e.g. a US-based company can set up an arrangement with a European company to be the official employer and to handle all the legal stuff, and then to fully dedicate that employee to the actual employer.

Depending on which country you and your employing entity are in, this could end up netting you all of the disadvantages of self-employment with none of the benefits.

E.g. in the UK, HMRC will determine your tax status based on, amongst other things, how much control your 'not employer' has over the work you do. So if GitLab were to treat you as just another member of the team, you'd run a big risk of ending up treated as an employee for tax purposes, but without any of the rights accorded to employees.

TLDR - talk to a tax professional who understands the regulations in both your and your "not employer's" jurisdictions.

I agree with this comment.

I'm wholly in the US, so maybe my experience is unique to me. Bit I was freelancing for quite a while and then one of my clients ended up buying all my time.

IMO, there weren't any benefits from remaining a contractor once I was working full time. We ended up cutting my pay a bit to account for a shift in taxes and that worked out better for both me and my employer.

If you were individual 1099, then no there is no advantage really. And you have to pay self-employment tax. If you were B2B 1099, there are ENORMOUS advantages. My average effective federal tax rate on ~$250k/yr is right around 1.8-2.2% because I'm 1099 B2B and have a great tax attorney and accountant. Obviously on paper I make like $30k a year or something stupid like that, I don't know. My attorney adjust things monthly or quarterly as necessary, starts new LLCs or whatever is required.

Wondering the same things !

Also, it's not really "employed" if you are still a freelancer / business contractor. You can leave when you feel like you want to leave, so the employer has the risk of missing people to finish each projects...

I get that, that is why I ask. I'm interested in becoming a full member of the team and fully integrate but I would like to keep my company setup just for the legal side of things & payment. I don't mind having a longer term contract with a well defined termination period etc.

Another possibility would be to become an employee on payroll and keep my company active on the side but that makes things more complicated regarding taxes and I would lose the benefit of receiving all payments through my company and keep most of the money in there to reinvest and build its assets.

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