I've worked in NY offices and got paid in UK (admittedly a while ago and for less than 90 days) - but can't see why working in an Airbnb would be different.
Has anyone experience of this recently?
I've worked in NY offices and got paid in UK (admittedly a while ago and for less than 90 days) - but can't see why working in an Airbnb would be different.
Has anyone experience of this recently?
The US substantial presence test is actually something like 31 days in the current year, and ~180 calculated as a weighted sum of presence over all visits in the preceeding few years. That's just to determine if you should pay tax, and note that vacations to the US contribute. Whether you can legally work in the US is another matter. I had to get a a J1 visa for a two week stay in the US because I was being paid remotely by a US organisation. So in this case I was working but paying taxes elsewhere.
Most Europeans have access to things like cross border permits e.g. Switzerland/Germany and within the EU freedom of movement means it doesn't really matter much. You just register with the City Hall or wherever in your target country.
It comes down to how honest you are. Lots of digital nomads illegally claim they're on holiday, and who's checking? I'm sure a lot of people would be happy to pay a fee for a temporary work permit though.
This should be revisited. Also I think this is a good example of the need to have expiration dates on new laws and regulations. This should be something that expires and has to be changed to reflect how people live today.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
Remote working
Visitors are permitted to undertake activities relating to their employment overseas remotely whilst they are in the UK, such as responding to emails or answering phone calls. However, you should check that the applicant’s main purpose of coming to the UK is to undertake a permitted activity, rather than specifically to work remotely from the UK. Where the applicant indicates that they intend to spend a large proportion of their time in the UK and will be doing some remote working, you should ensure that they are genuinely employed overseas and are not seeking to work in the UK.
PS: Actual rules are here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules but the general intent seems to be if your there to do something very temporary like compete in a sports tournament or do something for someone outside the UK that requires you to briefly visit the UK it’s fine.
That's doesn't seem like an exception? That sounds like saying "hey, I'm going to fly to the UK and work remotely from there" is against the law.
What that paragraph says to me is "If someone comes to the UK as a visitor, and happens to do some work - responding to email and/or answering phone calls" that's ok. But actually work full time in the UK remotely, is not legal.
Anecdotal example; when I was young and naive (well, more naive than now), I went to Canada (Vancouver) to help some guys out with some software. I read up on it a bit, but not enough (naive!) so at the border I told that I was going to do a bit of sight seeing and a bit of 'work'. Wrong word; was immediately taken apart and spent 1 hour explaining that no, no not work, just a bit of light consultancy; no programming, no actual managing people etc and no money changing hands (this was all true, I just shouldn't have used the word 'work'). They let me enter and there were no further issues, but I guess most people would just say 'vacation!' even though this was allowed; it can/does add stress and you might be unlucky and be sent back.
The person I was responding to asked:
>> But isn’t it illegal to work on a tourist visa anyway?
It’s clear there are many ways it’s legal to be working in the UK on a Visiter visa. That doesn’t mean it’s ok to go if your only reason to be in the Uk is to be a remote worker for 90 days.
This is a terrible idea. Here in the US the ever more hyper-partisan political environment makes it hard to do _anything_, even once. The idea that our Congress critters are going to re-pass all legislation for everything every (say) 5 years is ridiculous.
Those of us who like knowing that our food is safe to eat, our cars aren't firebomb death traps waiting to explode, that planes won't fall out of the sky onto our houses that aren't going to spontaneously collapse / flood from shitty plumbing / burn down from an electrical fire will disagree that all legislation should be repealed (either directly or via repeal-by-expiration), but please - let's be honest about what the effects of an 'expiration date' on legislation would actually accomplish.
If you're an in-office employee, your responsibilities are (a) show up at the expected work hours (b) get your tasks done.
If you're defined as a fully remote employee, your responsibilities are (a) be online and available at the expected work hours (b) get your tasks done.
Besides that you're just an amorphous black box, a person that has been placed in the cloud, much like a website placed on Cloudflare, where the input is money and the output is work. They don't need to know where you are, and I'd say they shouldn't even have a right to know -- that would be quite stalkerish, IMO. All that's really important is that this black box gets tasks done.
So it's not that they have a right to know where you are, it's that if they do notice and not act on it that's a legal risk to them as well since they're enabling it. (IANAL but this feels common sense.)
Pay your taxes, but if you say 153 days in Thailand or wherever you can get a long enough tourist visa, and use a VPN to the US and get your work done, I'm not sure why anyone would, should, or even has a right to care.
Countries with tourist visa stay limits are usually just to make sure you have the funds to leave. In general, if you come back the next day on another flight, with the intention of continuing to stay and spend money, they'll generally have no problem with it.
Couldn't one just structure it as a consultancy? I mean, if I hire a consultant to do something for me, I could just pay them through PayPal or Venmo or even Ethereum and wouldn't need to know where their office is. Onus is on them to be legally able to work and pay their taxes.
Surely it's not illegal to be homeless with a lot of money and skills.
(a) Let's say you spend 1 week in each state for 50 weeks of the year. Where do you file your taxes?
(b) Let's say you spend 1 week in each of 50 countries and work for AirBNB. You have no house, and no lease on a residence. Let's say it's mutual, e.g. you want to do this, and from their perspective, it's helping them because you're dogfooding their product. How do you deal with the legal side of it?
Having no address makes the government's brain explode.
My understanding is that it's not illegal but it basically makes it impossible to get government-issued ID, file taxes (which are legally required), open a bank account, get a credit card, etc.
So as a practical matter you probably get some traveling mailbox type service--in a state with no income tax presumably.
wrt b.
You're already a citizen somewhere. You'll still need an address there. See above. Then it's up to you and, perhaps to some degree, your employer to get appropriate visas. That said, for one week stays, an Airbnb stay during which you work an unknown amount of time remotely as opposed to being a tourist seems pretty doable so long as you keep a low profile and the company is cool with it.
This situation we currently essentially globally have, at least in the west, is quite an abusive system that is really just the bait and switch type pivot off what most people know as slavery, into a differently structured model of the same fundamental thing, one which really just spreads the total amount of enslavement across more people rather than getting rid of it altogether.
The parasitism of the ruling class that is far more obvious through slavery, is far harder to recognize in todays world because rather than taking, for argument’s sake, ~70% of 10% of people’s labor to support and enrich the ruling class; the shift/pivot off the slavery model was to introduce taking ~40% of the labor from 90% of the population and therefore enrich and empower the ruling parasitic class even more.
It’s precisely why a certain segment of the ruling class were all for “ending slavery”, because they knew “ending it”, i.e. spreading it over most people, would be far more lucrative and profitable. Life tip: Always be extremely leery of what the ruling class is promoting, and even more so re-examine things if they start supporting what you support.
The point is, we need to all start coming to a realization that the income tax and the whole tax system of fractional slavery enforcement needs to end. I do not claim to know the right answer, but I and any other rational and sane person know that this bait and switch slavery that exists needs to stop. What else do you call it, e.g. when hedge fund managers make billions per year and pay next to zero taxes, but some middle class person has huge sums of the value of their labor taken/ stolen to supply the hedge fund manager’s lifestyle?
Some have proposed things like the Fairfax.org, essentially a consumption tax through sales tax that captures taxes on illegal/harmful activities and ill begotten wealth, e.g., drug dealers buying their flashy things, while at the same time also taxing polluting activities in a direct correlation, e.g., buying new shiny-object over keeping something maintained and repaired. This would be a radical and arguably positive impact for all of humanity … except the parasitic ruling class which very much likes and has been working hard to expand its parasitism. See currency inflation at the press of a button for reference, which defrauds workers and savers through the worst tax, fraud.
I definitely wouldn't say that criticising big inefficient government is a leftist talking point at all.
If you want a perspective on how bad slavery was, search for this: Hardcore History Ep68 - Human Resources
Also, I knew immediately you were some libertarian/right, red pill person because I see this kind of talk all the time from old friends. Ya ya, the ruling class is so bad. Why are you preaching your gospel on HN? Do you want some ruling class VC money for your startup or not?
I'm not sure how this would make hedge fund managers who's net worth and amount invested might go up billions in a year but don't get paid or spend that amount.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax#Distribution_of_tax_bu...
Something other than slavery, which is humans literally owned and treated as property. Maybe what it actually is, a skewed taxation system.
You can become those things if you manage to navigate a social and possibly economic process and succeed in entering those positions. By using your own definition, a slave wasn't a slave because people like William Ellison [0] who were once slaves went on to become a slaveholder. A slave can become a slaveholder -- that doesn't cancel out them taking part in a system of slavery.
>there is no “ruling class”.
A couple weeks ago when I entered the US I was forcibly shackled and cuffed without being even 'arrested' nor formally charged with a crime and held for 16 hours while taken to hospitals against my will on the most flimsiest accusation of being suspected as a "drug mule." Do you really think a common armed citizen could have held me like that against my will without repercussion? There is most definitely a 'ruling class' who can get away with things others can't. The border patrol in fact is 'allowed' to violate the constitution within 100 miles of the 'border' (which debatably is either actual border or even just international airports) and stop people without probable cause of having committed a crime.
Perhaps 'debt bondage' is a better word to describe what the government imposes on its citizens (especially noted in the high percentage of black men thrown in debtor's jail for merely owing money a la child support enforcement). Debt bondage is considered a form of slavery by some, although distinct and perhaps less egregious from chattel slavery.
A consumption tax will do nothing to reduce the power of the "ruling class" since their consumption is a much smaller fraction of their income compared to the working man.
The current status is one with progressive tax rates where people with higher incomes pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes. This is still not enough due to loopholes, etc.
The person I replied to complains about "ruling class" and proposes (presumably as a way to mitigate the ruling class' accumulation of wealth) tax on consumption.
Since the fraction of income used for consumption decreases with income, a consumption tax corresponds to a regressive income tax (higher income -> lower tax rate). This is much worse, penalizes the poorest and leads to much worse wealth inequality than the existing system.
I don’t pay consumption taxes in the U.K. on food, rent or public transport, that’s the majority of expenses.
My neighbour does pay them on eating out at a restaurant, a kitchen refurbishment, and a new mercedes
You can go live in a society with few taxes if you want, look at moving to the Bahamas for example. Have fun.
This isn't as easy as it seems, even inside the EU. There are talks going on about laws regarding what constitutes "local hiring".
Basically, the issue is that some companies hire people from Eastern Europe, and pay them EE salaries there. But those people are then physically working from Western Europe, where they are "visiting workers" (don't know the exact term). This allows the companies to, among others, 1. pay lower salaries than the local going rate and 2. avoid paying payroll taxes locally.
I don't know how this works when applied to freelancing or remote working, but, as others have said, it's probably best to ask a lawyer or two.
After some time you're considered a resident so it doesn't make a difference compared to a local hire ?
The thing with these employees was that they never became local hires. So they would get their salary through their home country branch, with taxes paid over there, etc. The whole point is that these companies were trying to dance around the limits of employment law. What they were doing was technically legal, hence the will of the government to change the law.
[1] https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/poland/individual/residence [2] https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/portugal/individual/residence
The "default" rules for tax residency are superseded by a convention between the two countries, and there are a bunch of them, with many countries, on the site of the French government. There are specific conventions with Germany, Belgium and Switzerland, for example, that apply only to people living close to the border and working in the other country. If you take the train from Paris to work in Geneva, it doesn't apply.
Basically, it can be debated. It says that if you have a "permanent home" in both countries, you're a resident of the country "with which you have the most attachments". So for the hypothetical Polish worker who's "detached" in France, it could be argued that the "attachment" is to Poland, because their family is likely there, among other things. In the case of a freelance moving from country to country, who is likely unattached, this can probably be easily argued (though I'm not a lawyer).
Concerning remote-working freelance: For "independent workers", you're taxed in the country where you do business, except if you have a "fixed base" in the other country, from which you conduct your business. In that case, you're taxed in the country where the base is, but only for the part of income that is attributable to the work done from that base.
Source, in French: https://www.impots.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/media/10_conv...
Conventions directory: https://www.impots.gouv.fr/les-conventions-internationales
the term is 'posted workers'
I'm going to put it here as this is what an immigration person put it to me, just ask yourself "where are my feet?" That is the country/entity you should be paying your taxes to by default unless there is an explicit reciprocity agreement that may apply to you. So, if you're traveling Europe as an American while working remotely, you are violating tax law in every single country. From the law's point of view, there is no difference than as if you had contracted out your work to someone in each one of those countries. Don't worry, no one is going to come after you for those 10 hours but just know you are intentionally (or grossly negligent) making use of the inaction of enforcement.
[1] - https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary...
Other than the current scale of activity, the law has no "never foresaw technolo..." excuse for failing to cover such things. Centuries ago, it was perfectly normal for authors, composers, painters, etc. to travel to and work in other countries - "for their health" as they worked on their next masterpiece, or for inspiration, or to give paid lectures, or to perform or conduct music, or to paint portraits of locals, or several of those things.
It'd be rather interesting if a lawyer or few (who were fond of dusty tomes) did some real research on how those activities were handled back in the day, the old case law, etc.
The modern, computerized version of this is faster, cooler, and sexier - but (IANAL) I see little basis for saying that there's a legal difference in kind.
Upon reflection, I should not have said "an open question". Rather, I should have said that many feel that the spirit and intent of the law should be revisited. For many, the feet test is about resources utilization. Using electricity, internet, housing, etc. In the author example, the author is clearly making a choice to live at that hotel. Back when the law was written, I think this would have covered most cases. However, now, the modal case are "digital nomads" where the normal thing is to not spend more than 1 week - 1 month in a single place. Oftentimes, the destination doesn't matter, but the journey. In the extreme, imagine spending 2 days in every country in the world, in perpetual motion. This has always been a possibility and the law covers this case (as we both know) but I think people are beginning to question if it makes sense given the new distribution brought by the internet. To come back to the sysadmin example, the point was that the sysadmin is utilizing the same global resources except for maybe an additional epsilon as they move around to the different localities. Many feel that the locality does not provide anything in return for the right to tax the income.
If you're a well-established author of (say) steamy romances, writing yet another steamy romance - then the value is created (work is done) when you write the book.
If you're a nobody, dreaming of success as an author - then the work is done when you somehow convince a publisher to take a risk and buy your manuscript.
(And in between those cases it would get messy:)
It would be interesting to watch California try to claim income tax on book royalties that were first started in CA but then the author moves elsewhere.
I hope you're being sarcastic here, no?
Once again this has been reviewed by laywers at different companies who have deemed this risk to be acceptable.
There might be countries that will arrest you if you read your corporate mail while on holidays, however, these generally not on the green list of safe countries to travel too.
Acceptable to the company. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's acceptable to you, especially if penalties would primarily fall on you for illegally claiming the wrong immigration status.
Allowing unrestricted access to your country by remote workers will have economic impact.
There are several ways tax codes can categorize income:
- the country the person was hired in (e.g. US)
- the country for whom the work is complete for (say if US employee delivered code for a Canadian office)
- the country the company who hired the person is located in
- the country the company paying the employee is located in
- the country the person was originally hired in (same as #2)
- the country where the work is actually done
A lot of countries just look at the last one. Doesn't matter if you were hired in the US, paid in the US dollars and US taxes are taken from your pay check. If you complete your work in country X, country X wants their taxes according to their laws.
There is a separate aspect for the company. You as an employee might comply with all tax regulations - hired in the US, US taxes deducted, but you file your taxes in a separate country and pay taxes owed.
But your employer may be out of compliance as well - they may need to be registered in the that country, have obligations for employer tax and social security payments, etc.
It's mostly their own obligations companies are worried about. If the employee pisses off and breaks tax law in another country, well that's on them.
But when it's a big or noticeable deal, then things come into play. US baseball players have to file Canadian taxes when they play in Canada, and if an exposition game occurs in Japan or London, taxes are filed there, too.
If you're not trying to evade taxes, and aren't making much anyway, most places don't actually do anything, but if they decided they wanted to they could.
Skirting gray areas is fine - working while on a 3 week vacation is likely not worth chasing down.
Staying in a country for 4 months knowing that after 3 months you should pay taxes, but just pretending you're a tourist? That's pretty clearly trying to evade taxes.
I hope this is sarcasm. A VPN is a technical detail that would never stand up, legally. The only situation where I can see a VPN being useful is within your own company: if they don't want you working remotely a VPN might help cover up the fact that you are. But aside from that it won't help you.
Where are you working if you are flying above various states and countries while VPNd?
A better analogy would be if you worked remotely from a boat on the high seas on your own boat.
As far as their tax authorities are concerned, yeah, you normally have 90 days or so where they don’t care about your income, but immigration? Almost never. Most digital nomads just get away with it because it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things that customs and immigration authorities have to care about - witness the Thai visa tours etc.
I'm a musician and have toured Western Europe a couple of times (and know a lot of others who have). Apart from the UK noone I know ever gets working visas, and this is never a problem crossing borders honestly saying to immigration that we're there on tour in a van full of music equipment and merchandise.
There are separate arrangements for touring groups. However, if you're not from the EU then good luck. You'll notice that there are huge complications after brexit. That said, likely nobody will check, care or notice.
Maybe it's a "noone cares" thing, but this includes some American friends who were caught with weed in their tour van at the Norwegian border and still didn't have any visa issues (and somehow still managed to get into the country!)
Even if noone cared, relying on the apathy of others seems like a poor part of a business model. Unfortunately, they do seem to care at the US-Canadian border entering the US. There have been a few Canadian professional wrestlers, like Mike Bailey and Super Smash Bros., who were barred entry to the US entirely for 5 yrs because they were caught trying to work in the US without a visa.
More on the topic of musicians: https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/us-border-canadian...
I think this is all silly, of course, especially because American acts have seemingly no trouble working in Canada. I shouldn't take for granted when I saw the Canadian band badbadnotgood in the US last month...
Yes, but that is a case where they're getting paid in the US to work.
The one conference horror story I recall from a few years back was someone was going to speak at some small UK(?) conference and they were getting an honorarium or something like that. And they told immigration and I think were denied entry for that reason. But I've spoken at dozens of events for free and it's never been an issue.
PS: Even if company is multinational corporation.
A few decades ago, there was a group of wealthy countries, a group of poor countries, and a large gap between them. Back then it made sense to see them as 2 separate groups, first world and third. Right now however, they're no longer separate groups - there's a continuous spectrum. A growing number of countries have been crawling out of poverty.
Some countries are rich, some are poor, and some are in between. They're no longer separate groups.
(This of course does not mean that there isn't a poverty problem in the world. Just that "third world" no longer accurately describes the situation.)
To clarify, I misremembered Factfulness. The book actually talks about "developed" versus "developing". In my memory I jumbled that up with "third world".
Second world -- Warsaw Pact member states
Third world -- all other states
So eventually "third world" came to just mean "poor countries". After all, there has now been as much time, post WWII, without the cold war, as there was with one!
That’s not how the term is used.
After the collapse of the USSR "Third World" became primarily associated with impoverished nations.
Somewhere like Brazil/Paraguay/Mexico/Philippines/Iraq no one is gonna ask you if you worked remotely while on your way out. No one. Half the time they don't even bother to ask what you're doing while entering, they just stamp your passport and you're on your way. Japan may be different, but there is no way they're gonna deport you on your way out.
I think they do this for the quite clever reason that then if you work they can get you for lying to an official rather just for working.
All European cointries have records of your entry/leaving, and if you overstay you will likely end up with a lifetime travel ban. The only exception would be like a medical emergency.
Any references to this happening all the time?
Because to me it seems like border patrol doesn't have the authority to check your bank account or demand that you "show significant savings".
Sure they can refuse to let you in but does it really happen all the time?
The UK requires some visitors to show bank statements when applying for a visa.
This account is opened remotely from the students' home country in a German bank, before the visa applicstion. And savings cannot be withdrawn for a period of time.
I had an acquaintance that studied in Germany that had a visa problem for withdrawing more money than allowed from his "Blocked bank account".
https://www.fintiba.com/moving-to-germany/studying/requireme...
After all that, when you arrive at the border, they ask questions and US border guards in particular may ask for access to your phone and laptop.
So it does happen all the time, it's just thay typically rich tourists from America are subject to less scruitiny than folks from poorer or politically messier places
Will your policies allow you to give permission for something illegal?
Why would the liability be solely with the person? Especially if that company has a representation in the other country I highly doubt this.
In e.g. NL the company has to "take care" of the employee. A company cannot just ignore such a question, or take it as "not my problem".
I know a lot of countries turn a blind eye to enforcing immigration and labor laws. Thailand being one of them.
Even Pieter Levels works out of Thailand and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a Thai work permit.
What's the difference if I do some work in the evening at home or during my holiday in e.g. Greece?
The only added cost in given country is energy. Problems start to appear if I get sick, but that should be on myself - and in most cases (for EU citizen) it is most appropriate to return home to cure/hospitalize (unless it is something needing immediate help).
What with labor laws? Should you follow the laws from the country from where you work or where the company is located? Companies would just get a post box in the country with the weakest labour laws.
The simplest solution stays that the laws where you physically are apply.
Most employers won't allow what you're doing.
There's no EU-wide 183 day rule for social contributions. If you stay more than 3 months in a country you need to be registered as a posted worker, and there are some legal implications.
Would you mind sharing in which area) industry one can get such a good deal in Germany? All i found was 40h/week, some with overtime.
I'm asking since the companies in Austria with IG Metal equivalent are terrible in those regards: poor pay for SW devs as their main money making products are some automotive/mechanical widgets instead of SW, boomer management insists on commuting to the office to some remote village because if the guys in the machine shop need to be in the office to do their work then so should the devs and everyone else, outdated SW, tooling and dev practices, poor equipment (some cheapo underpowered Dell/HP/Lenovo bogged down by corporate spyware that the pensioners in IT insists everyone must have, including SW devs).
Kinda confusing to me, since you said you're getting nearly swiss money and it's not what I imagine at IG Metal companies :)
From my personal experience a lot of companies in Switzerland are more conservative
If you're doing ordinary work I think that violates the terms of the B-1/B-2 visa - even if under 90 days.
If you go to meet team members in your NY office, interview some new staff, and look for a new building to move the office to, that’s all fine.
If you happen to do some unrelated sysadmin work on your servers in london while you’re there, that’s probably fine too, as your primary reason to visit is quite clearly fine.
If you went for a holiday for 2 weeks(on a B2 or esta) and happened to answer a phone call from work that’s fine.
If you went on holiday for 2 weeks and spent 10 days working remotely that’s probably not fine. If you went on a family holiday for 4 weeks but did a few days work remotely that’s might be ok. If you did it several times a year though it probably wouldn’t be.
There’s no hard and fast rule in law, and doubly so in immigration where the power to allow you in sits with the guy at the airport.
https://legalservicesincorporated.com/immigration/what-activ... has a good overview.
That's not legal. To work in the EU you need a work visa. Though they ignore the business trips. What's legal and what's checked are different things.
E.g. new foreign colleagues need to get a tax id in The Netherlands before they do any work. Doesn't matter if they came from the US.
Of course, there are a lot of unenforced laws on the books, but I'm a little skeptical that the millions and millions of people who travel cross-border on business trips every year are all mostly breaking immigration laws.
To be fair, my experiences are all on relatively short trips--a few weeks at most and usually less. Perhaps there would be more issues if I were staying 90 days and was open about workationing the whole time.
Attending conferences is usually ok, but it's a complicated topic because it depends on the traveller's passport, the visited country and how strict rules are enforced.
As a foreign national, for example a U.S. B1 visa allows attending conferences and close business deals. But it doesn't explicitly allow working remotely for a non-US company.
In any case, in most countries whether explicit or implicit that distinction is probably the right one. Of course, no one is going to care or know if you check some emails and do some work--just like no one cared if you made some phone calls and did some work years ago.
But, in most places, you probably shouldn't show up and say you'll be spending the next 90 days working remotely.
Just that normally no-one ever checks or cares.
It could be a problem if you later try to become a resident in the same country though.