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Comment by rgbrgb | Hacker News Reader

I'd guess that interaction is very common and not illegal anywhere I'm aware of.

In most jurisdictions, it is illegal to contract with someone for goods or services over a certain amount if you don't have their tax information. Otherwise, tax avoidance would be trivial. In the US specifically, you're required to file Form 1099 for any contracts over $600, which requires the other party's SSN, EIN, or another foreign tax identifier.

Some of the companies with job postings on that site seem to be headed by people in the US.

I'm not a lawyer but I think they're taking a serious risk.

Admittedly, in the US, they could probably set up an entity for tax purposes. Their real identity would still be somewhere in the chain but not necessarily easily discoverable by the person you're doing work for.

ADDED: As others have noted, there are probably legal issues with that entity effectively acting a full-time employee. And, of course, the entity doing the work can't get any employee benefits.

Business registration is a matter of public record, as far as I'm aware. Any entity you might set up for tax purposes would need at least to have a registered public agent, and probably a public list of directors and shareholders. However, it would mean that the business you're contracting with to no longer needs to file a 1099, at least.

Yes. Having a business entity doesn't necessarily keep someone from tracking down your identity. But, depending upon how complex you want to make things (and presumably how much money you're willing to spend), you can probably obfuscate your identity from being casually revealed to everyone. Really depends what you're trying to accomplish.

A very interesting market for such is the Elderly Fraud call industry out of Tel_aviv...

Its a BILLION dollar industry calling elderly US population from call centers in Tel Aviv, which may or may not have also ties to Niger.

its BIG.

Wouldn't it still be possible to do contracts for $599, but like... one for each jira ticket/github issue or something? You could hypothetically set things up to not know who was resolving tickets, right?

I mean it seems like a ridiculous way of getting work done, but fundamentally possible.

No, if you (as a contractor or employee) make more than $600 from the same person/business, you'd be obligated to report it, which would in turn make them obligated to report it, even if they didn't realize you had done more than a single contract for them. For this to work, you'd have to have independent shell corps make each chunk of work as well, which .. is probably also illegal.

What could work is a middle man (ala upwork), but then you'd have to accept the middle man knowing you.

That makes sense -- I'm assuming the company is going to follow the letter of the law, because they are a known entity, but the anonymous/pseudonymous individual is trying to break it.

you'd have to spin up an LLC for each engagement to do this, 1099 forms are based on your entire (contractor) relationship with the company for the tax year.

You're explicitly contracting to rip off another app, and doing so by paying under the table with no taxes paid/collected on either end, and you think that's totally legit?

Ripping off another app is not illegal in most countries, unless you copy their name or logo.

This is exactly what I was describing, you did a better job.

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