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Comment by whatok | Hacker News Reader

Relevant text: Oracle is implementing a more flexible employee work location policy and has changed its Corporate Headquarters from Redwood City, California to Austin, Texas. We believe these moves best position Oracle for growth and provide our personnel with more flexibility about where and how they work. Depending on their role, this means that many of our employees can choose their office location as well as continue to work from home part time or all of the time. In addition, we will continue to support major hubs for Oracle around the world, including those in the United States such as Redwood City, Austin, Santa Monica, Seattle, Denver, Orlando and Burlington, among others, and we expect to add other locations over time. By implementing a more modern approach to work, we expect to further improve our employees’ quality of life and quality of output.

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What does this mean ? What does a HQ mean when people are permanent WFH ?

It means less taxes and less strict labor laws.

How does labor law impact anything when everyone is WFH ? Also, do taxes really have anything to do with your HQ location ? All corporations are registered in Delaware.

Company still pays most of its taxes in HQ.

And many of those taxes are based on things like now many distinct offices you have for employees. This is one of the reasons we saw the death of private offices and a shift to the whole open workspace bullshit. Because you’d get taxed per office, whether it was being used 5 days a week or not.

Do you mean number of private workspaces that are called an “office” in a building affects how taxes are calculated? So reconfiguring the floors in a corporate building might affect how they file taxes? I’ve never heard of that before...

Yes. And it can be impacted at a municipality level, as well as a state or county level too. So the city of Seattle might have a different way they tax these things than the city of Redmond, in addition to whatever taxes are levied by King County or Washington State.

ETA: there are very real reasons big companies have reconfigured workspaces and it isn’t about worker efficiency studies or even fitting more people into a space, but about taxes.

This isn't true. The move to the open office was NOT because of a city tax on the number of private offices. For this to be remotely true someone would need to audit each building / floor.

Could you point to a government website with additional information?

It’s not the only reason. It’s certainly a reason in certain areas. Research B&O tax laws and loopholes and the intricacies therein.

This is news to me. Could you provide some reading material on this topic?

Look up B&O taxes. There’s often a square footage requirement to it and depending on where you are, there can be a surcharge or additional fee for what they deem distinct workspaces. So if it has a door, that’s a new place. Whereas open and more disparate spaces do not. Again, all of this is extremely dependent on where you operate and can vary based on what type of business you’re in, etc. etc.

I wish I had more direct information. I was informed of this by a tax attorney, when I was complaining about how our shared employer was shifting away from individual offices, which had been a hallmark of the company and corporate culture. He told me that there had been some changes to the local B&O tax law that helped make the argument to to shared/team/open spaces. I did some research and found he was right, though again, the specifics are going to differ depending on where you are, what business you’re in, the size of the business, etc.

I’m entertained that the euphemism “arranging deck chairs on the Titanic” is not actually useless, in this context.

I would be interested in reading more about this, as well, but am uncertain how to go about searching for it.

Often (maybe always?) employees pay income tax in the state where their company's headquarters is, or the local office in which they work.

Is that ever true? I'm pretty sure you pay income tax in the state in which you work, regardless of where HQ is.

You're talking about the employee while the GP is talking about the employer. Both have their income (personal or corporate) taxes, so both statements are true.

Are you sure?

> employees pay income tax

I am not a tax attorney obviously, but the information I've been given (by many sources) is that this year I'll pay taxes for the state in which my employer resides, not where I've been living. I think the decider is "state in which you work", which is what I meant by "local office" (i.e. I'm still considered to "work" in NY).

New York is attempting to do that, true. Usually it is your state of residence and the state in which you physically work that tax you (both, if they are different), but New York’s novel claim is unlikely to succeed for work by non-NY residents that doesn't occur in NY.

NY’s position right now is ridiculous. I hope the courts rule that NY has no right to tax income for someone who hasn’t stepped foot in NY since March.

Nope nope nope nope.

Generally, it’s the state where you work.

It can be complicated when you live in one state and work in another.

But the location of your corporate office is absolute irrelevant for where an employee pays taxes.

Usually, the place of the employees residence and the physical worksite; rules for interstate travel for work and state income tax are different per state, with some applying tax on the first day of work in the state, others having a number of days threshold.

The employer’s HQ generally has no effect, independently of it being a worksite for many employees.

HN really needs an AMA on this so people stop repeating these false claims

AFAIK, WFH employees have CA tax obligations when the company HQ is in CA, even if they’re working from other states.

So all non-CA employees have less of a tax burden as a result of the HQ relocation.

This is not correct. I work for a CA based company. I work from home in a different state which is my legal residence. I do not file or pay CA taxes.

How do you get health insurance? Does your company have an office in your state? If not, do they give you Californi-based coverage, with most providers being out-of-network?

(I am in the same position, working in not-CA for an employer HQ'd in CA.)

> How do you get health insurance?

Through my employer, like many employees.

> Does your company have an office in your state?

Yes, though I've not seen the inside of it with my eyes since March.

> If not, do they give you Californi-based coverage, with most providers being out-of-network?

While your question was conditional on the office, no, the CA-specific health plans are only available for CA employees. Non-CA employees have a different set of options. (Sadly: I was rather fond of Kaiser.)

Thanks for the responses.

I was asking because my son works for a tech company and was told that he could only move to states where they had an office, because that's where the company already has health coverage.

Since insurance doesn't cross state lines, if had wanted to relocate to South Dakota they would have to get him coverage with Blue Cross of South Dakota (or whichever carrier) which would require cost and administrative effort. Maybe they just didn't want to go through the trouble for one employee.

My employer provides PPO insurance for out of CA employees. HMO is CA only.

I don't think this is true. Employees pay taxes based on residency requirement. So if you are not a resident of CA, you don't pay taxes, regardless of where your HQ is

If California can claim the work was done in or for California. They’ll tax it. If you work remote from Texas but hr says your desk is in California. You owe California taxes.

This is categorically false. If you're a Texas resident, working for a California based company, but doing your work remotely in Texas, you absolutely do not owe taxes in California.

The concept of "work done for California" does not exist. If the work is done in Texas (at your house), you pay Texas taxes (no income tax).

He's right when he says that your desk location (your main office, not necessarily HQ) according to HR is what matters. That's where your withholdings go. You could maybe fight with the State of California for the refund next year, but in the meantime you'll pay taxes in the state if your paycheck says so. If your desk is in NYC, but live in CT or NJ, you'll pay taxes in two states, even if you haven't set foot in your office for months. You can try changing your residency to e.g. Texas as you say, getting assigned by HR to a new office or marked as remote, but you can bet that the original state will try everything in their book to keep some of your money.

Some states are more aggressive than others. Although you're right in general, there is actually a history of CA going aggressively after the money of residents of other states, like the screenwriter in AZ that did a lot of work for a California customer: https://ota.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/54/2019/08/18032...

>He's right when he says that your desk location (your main office, not necessarily HQ) according to HR is what matters.

Incorrect, you kind of have this backwards. If you're a resident in another state (Texas), and are conducting work in that state (Texas, home office), then HR has to make sure they're conforming to the labor laws of that state (Texas), not the state of the office where you used to work (California).

>You could maybe fight with the State of California for the refund next year, but in the meantime you'll pay taxes in the state if your paycheck says so.

That's why it's pertinent to change your residency as soon as you move, and then update HR the same day. Else you're fighting an uphill battle for no reason.

>If your desk is in NYC, but live in CT or NJ, you'll pay taxes in two states, even if you haven't set foot in your office for months.

No longer true if you no longer actually work there.

>You can try changing your residency to e.g. Texas as you say, getting assigned by HR to a new office or marked as remote, but you can bet that the original state will try everything in their book to keep some of your money.

And you can give them the middle finger because they're wrong. Spending $300 to get your taxes prepped by a CPA will stop 99% of this shenanigans.

>Although you're right in general, there is actually a history of CA going aggressively after the money of residents of other states, like the screenwriter in AZ that did a lot of work for a California customer

That's because he was deriving his income as a unitary business from entirely California sources: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2019/10/22/now-calif...

Again, a lot of states have similar laws on the books (VA, NY, etc.).

Source: I used to be a paralegal, and have worked remotely for a long time in various states.

There is some nuance to this. CA deliberately defines anybody who is in CA "other than for a transitory purpose" as a CA resident (for tax purposes). So if you happen to reside in TX but come to Redwood City for a couple weeks and work there, for example, CA can come after you. I am fairly certain this will happen more often once increasing numbers of people vote with their feet.

Even this is not entirely correct. They do not consider you a CA resident, but they consider the income you make while (more than transiently) in the state taxable.

Many states have similar clauses (NY, NJ, etc.), CA is not unique in this aspect.

CA is actually more generous than a number of states, which do not exempt transitory presence for work, so if you do earn any money at all for work while in the state you owe income taxes (and your employer is obligated to withhold for the State.)

This is simply false. I’ve lived in California, been hired for a California company, allowed to work from home, and moved out of state.

The moment I left California the state I paid income tax to changed.

Think of it this way: all of the government services I use are in the state I reside in. I use literally $0 in California services. Not police, not fire department, not roads: nada.

California had a reputation for being very strict about whether you are a “resident.” But it’s not infinite.

Once you’re gone, they can’t tax you.

There are some exceptions for people who live near in a neighboring state, but work physically in California.

> If California can claim the work was done in or for California

In yes, for no.

No, you only pay for time worked in CA. The only exception I found are options/RSUs granted in CA and vested after you've left, these may be taxed in proportion to the time originally worked in CA after the grant.

RSUs are taxed in state where granted

Non-Quals are prorated

ISOs are taxed in state where exercised

For CA, ISOs and RSUs are prorated if holding requirements are not met. https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/misc/1004.html, it has a summary at the bottom

It means less taxes and less strict labor laws.

Not for people that remain in CA, WFH or not. For those that move to TX, what you said applies.

This can also paint a target on non TX workers. I have lived through that. HQ of a company I worked for in the past moved to TX and anyone that was not willing to relocate was part of the layoffs. Of course, it didn't start off that way. People were initially told they would be fine where they were. Our California office went from several hundred to six people.

Let me guess.. hp?

I read this as the US Central time zone is convenient for working with people on both Coasts and those working remote.

Name anchor link to this text: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1341439/000156459020...

Interesting this sentence is at the end of this 40+ page document under the section "Other Information". The very first page says 2300 Oracle Way Austin, Texas but their previous quarterly reports shows 500 Oracle Parkway Redwood City, California

That seems represent the actual event that occurred, ie a changing of HQ address.

Yet many are assuming that employees will be moving from CA to TX, despite no indication of that.

Funny that the don't mention Bangalore, where they have more people than HQ

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