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How to Pay Remote Employees
61–70 of 82 posts
Re: How to Pay Remote Employees
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not mention the state? You should contact your state representative (not member of Congress) and state senator (not US Senator) and let them know that you were denied a well-paying job because of the onerous standards your state has for remote work. They might be inclined to change it.
I actually thought I did (it's Florida by the way)... I want to be clear, that I don't blame the state in the slightest. I honestly feel that companies should have to pay taxes where they operate regardless of how many employees live there, but what sucks is that a lot of states have difficult tax codes, esoteric and difficult ways of sending taxes in, have varying laws that make it extremely hard to follow the law u…
> I also don't really blame the company.
You should. Or conversely, you can look at this as having dodged a bullet.
On paper, they were willing to commit to multiple years of a presumptively-six-figure salary to you (seriously: an employment agreement is a big financial deal, even if it's legally "at will" -- there's a lot of money on the table) but pulled out because of some fear of bureaucracy and (maybe) a tax increase? That tells me that the commitment they were thinking of putting on paper wasn't worth, heh, the paper.
That's not a loyal employer, basically. If they're willing to cut corners with the State of Florida they'll do it with their own employees too.
Re: How to Pay Remote Employees
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know how you would define employees, contractors etc. But the hard details of the deal have always been strictly an amount of payment for work completed. No more and no less than that. No written contracts, no sick leave, no government insurance, no paid holiday. All those expenses are their responsibility, and they know that. But the real situation is a little softer, because of course I will be more flexibl…
What I was going for was: if it's a standard contractor-like payment, what paperwork do you save by using cryptocurrency?
Try sending money around the world and you will get to know how much manual work and paperwork is involved. Banks don't live in this century yet and if multiple countries are involved it gets worse.
Re: How to Pay Remote Employees
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know how you would define employees, contractors etc. But the hard details of the deal have always been strictly an amount of payment for work completed. No more and no less than that. No written contracts, no sick leave, no government insurance, no paid holiday. All those expenses are their responsibility, and they know that. But the real situation is a little softer, because of course I will be more flexibl…
What I was going for was: if it's a standard contractor-like payment, what paperwork do you save by using cryptocurrency?
There's no paperwork. None. I'm working as an offshore company domiciled in a "tax haven"....
So that paperwork is one of the hassles that we save. Sending payment is one-click. Then it's done and there's no possible undoing.
Bank payments can be denied, reversed, routed strangely, delayed or something else. Bitcoin is more binary; either it works instantly or it fails and you know it. There's not so much doubt about it. Though high transaction fees for a few weeks last year did introduce more uncertainty, that is true.
Anecdote: Out of hundreds of small monthly salary payments I've sent out, I've only once had a big problem. What happened there was that the payee said she hadn't got it, but the blockchain said it was sent and confirmed.
Of course I certainly trust the blockchain to tell me the truth. More than I trust a bank. Who wouldn't?
I think the payee's computer had probably been malware hacked. (So I told her how to clean her PC and then I sent the same payment again as a one-off favor and that was ok, no further trouble and we still work together today).
Re: How to Pay Remote Employees
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not mention the state? You should contact your state representative (not member of Congress) and state senator (not US Senator) and let them know that you were denied a well-paying job because of the onerous standards your state has for remote work. They might be inclined to change it.
I actually thought I did (it's Florida by the way)... I want to be clear, that I don't blame the state in the slightest. I honestly feel that companies should have to pay taxes where they operate regardless of how many employees live there, but what sucks is that a lot of states have difficult tax codes, esoteric and difficult ways of sending taxes in, have varying laws that make it extremely hard to follow the law u…
Several states have joined a consortium called the Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board[1], which harmonized, standardized, and streamlined the sales tax policies between those states in order to support easier compliance across multiple states.
South Dakota's recent win at the Supreme Court[2] related to collecting sales tax from internet sales was due in large part to SD's very pragmatic and fair approach for out-of-state sellers (doesn't require you to know/care about local sales tax fluctuations and only want a base state-wide rate, exempts sellers with less than $100k of sales to the state, etc).
I'm with you in that I don't blame the state for wanting to collect taxes; stuff has to get paid for somehow, and states don't have the same infinite/unbounded pocketbook that the federal government has. But don't disregard what you said immediately after that - the difficulty with compliance is a huge hurdle. If the company could have made compliance a minor additional cost, they could bake that into their decision. Instead, it was an unbounded additional cost with unknown future repercussions and required heavy ongoing administrative work (it's another legal/accounting variable that adds potentially non-trivial overhead to all future legal and accounting work).
The streamlined sales tax stuff demonstrates the same type of collaboration that could be done to simplify remote employee administration, without having the full compliance baggage that comes with the same level of administrative overhead as if you had a full fledged office in the state. Doing so would make it far easier and less onerous to hire remote employees (or allow an on site employee to keep working for you if they move out of state). So it's still worth raising the issue to political figures, as it's very similar (if far smaller in magnitude) to the revenue loss they had by not making it easy to comply with sales tax stuff.
[1] http://www.streamlinedsalestax.org/ [2] http://thehill.com/policy/finance/393441-supreme-court-rules...
Re: How to Pay Remote Employees
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are there contracts made so that the relationship between employers and employees is guaranteed/retained over a period of time ?
No, such limitations would likely be illegal (without additional compensation, beyond the wages, also being stipulated for the period where the employee couldn't leave / couldn't be let go) in many states. I have never seen such a guarantee / requirement in an employment contract, such a "key man" provision would likely be reserved for someone who is in possession of some critical knowledge to the company and company…
And yet US companies do homework assignments first round and 8 hour interviews second round if not even more.
I have had jobs offered after a two hour technical interview plus 1 hour hr interview in Germany.
Re: How to Pay Remote Employees
#67Anyone know of remote companies that hire systems programmer not front end or backend for a web app?
Re: How to Pay Remote Employees
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually thought I did (it's Florida by the way)... I want to be clear, that I don't blame the state in the slightest. I honestly feel that companies should have to pay taxes where they operate regardless of how many employees live there, but what sucks is that a lot of states have difficult tax codes, esoteric and difficult ways of sending taxes in, have varying laws that make it extremely hard to follow the law u…
> I also don't really blame the company. You should. Or conversely, you can look at this as having dodged a bullet. On paper, they were willing to commit to multiple years of a presumptively-six-figure salary to you (seriously: an employment agreement is a big financial deal , even if it's legally "at will" -- there's a lot of money on the table) but pulled out because of some fear of bureaucracy and (maybe) a tax in…
No, this is backwards. The company didn’t want to cut corners, and full compliance with state laws is expensive. It’s a good sign that a company would carefully consider subjecting their legal and HR resources to this additional complexity. The additional tax burden is just a straightforward addition to per-employee overhead and there is a number of in-state employees above which that overhead is worth paying.
Cutting corners would be hiring an employee as a contractor in order to avoid dealing with the new state’s laws, or simply punting on acquiring any research or consultation, which would actually endanger the OP’s employment status. Perhaps you are used to companies operating this way, but it’s not a sign of a good employer.
Re: How to Pay Remote Employees
#69Just pay in Bitcoin (Cash) and call it a day?
Transacrion costs are less than 1c USD for any amount and near instant.
For my gigs, I only accept BCH as it's safer than holding paper or digital entries that can be taken from you at will.
Just convert what you need to be stable in DAI and you will also avoid the volatility.
Re: How to Pay Remote Employees
#70Cryptocurrencies are a great way to pay remote employees or contractors with low fees.
what are the fees all-in? just buying the thing is say 1% then you have miner's fees of 0.3%? something like that?
Transactions in cryptocurrency can be zero-fee with NANO. Bitcoin transactions can be also free or almost free when using Lightning network. On-chain Bitcoin transactions are priced by markets and can be high when the network is congested, but are currently very low (about $0.2).
Exchanging to and from local currency depends on how you do it. Most of the cost comes from the volatility, which in general might turn into profit as well. Exchanging at ATMs or 'quick buy/sell' services can be pricey (5% or so). Transferring fiat currency to/from a bank account is generally free.