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Comment by conductr | Hacker News Reader

> Location does factor, however, into PwC employees' pay, Seals-Coffield said. Employees who opt to work virtually full-time from a lower-cost location would see their pay decrease

I see these types of rules as encouraging people into elaborate lies where people setup fake addresses in the closest high COL city but actually live 200 miles a way. Even if just for taxes, have an address that has no state income tax but you actually spend your time in the next state over that has an income tax.

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You might be deceiving your employer, but you're also committing tax fraud.

States already devote a ton of effort to take income they believe is rightfully "theirs". If you actually work from Oregon but claim to be a California employee, you're going to have to sign tax forms swearing to it. Oregon will no go easy on you if you find out you're actually a tax resident.

It's funny when businesses do it, it's not illegal (why so many incorporate in Delaware).

Or the Double Irish with A Dutch Sandwich[1]

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/double-irish-with-a-dut...

I can see a "live in suburbs claim city" for some areas that's a significant cost of living decrease. Another 5 miles away I'm in farm fields and costs drop even further. A simple "i changed internet providers" if probably enough to move 20 miles and dro get the lowest cost for me. It's a very strange arms race

This will probably be done at the metro level rather than the exact city.

Hard in practice. What will you do when a nearby colleague invites you out for a coffee, walk, beer, etc.

this is where being socially awkward helps :)

Maybe hard for some. I dodged most of this preCovid and in office. I have no problem declining invitations though (It’d be a nightmare for my wife lol, to whom I often say invitations are not obligations). Maybe if you have a persistent coworker who just happens to work in your fully remote and fabricated neighborhood, you’ll have to make the trip over a couple times a year to appease them.

Ya, will get scrubbed for via device locations though I’m sure.

I’m sure there are plenty of solves for that for those motivated? VPN? Remote desktop?

Can states not subpoena mobile networks for people’s location histories?

Seems kind of stupid to commit tax evasion with no chance of plausible deniability. For the bottom 80% or even 90% of people it seems like the rewards are only a few thousand dollars per year. And the remaining 10% to 20% are easy for authorities to identify.

I’m absolutely sure they could but, being devil’s advocate here, would they? What is going to tip them off? I feel extremely low chances this comes up in an audit

The tax comment was only a secondary point that i agree is quite stupid and obviously illegal. But I never underestimate how much people hate paying taxes and the lengths they go through to avoid them.

A couple years ago, Connecticut got records of all the Newegg purchases in the previous 5 years or something that had shipped to Connecticut, and mailed everyone a bill for use tax they evaded.

https://www.techspot.com/news/73582-newegg-customers-connect...

All I know is if you are trying to evade taxes, you might want to do it with some plausible deniability. When tax receipts come up short, they are going to come after someone, and many things are a few seconds worth of search query away in a database.

All work is tied to a corporate user name and a managed device.

VPN -> why is a private VPN on a work computer, further investigation (assuming you could even download it onto a PwC comp)

etc

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