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Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

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Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#631

Post by mvkel »

ultimoo wrote: post #166

>Most companies don’t do this because of the mountain of complexities with taxes, payroll, and time zone availability, but I hope we can open-source a solution so other companies can offer this flexibility as well. I think this is a genius growth play for Airbnb. Make it easier for _other_ companies to operate in a similar way so that _their_ employees can travel and live in an... Airbnb! Next, they should lobby to g…

It's trivial to do this with Gusto and companies like CorpNet. We have employees in 13 states and it's all automated.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#632

Post by notch656a »

dheera wrote: post #626
wombatpm wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That works because it’s a 1099 situation. But FICA, tax withholding and health care benefits are all tied up in your place of residence. Assuming you have a driver’s license and a voters registration, there is someplace you call home otherwise you are just a hobo

Hm. So what legal framework do "hobos" use? 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'…

The government generally doesn't recognize having no fixed address whatsoever. I was caught 20 miles from the nearest road once 'illegally existing' in a wilderness area in Oregon 'without a permit.' The officer of course had nowhere to take me because there was no prison or way to extract me out, we literally randomly found each other on a mountain. When I told him I had no address he literally had no way to enter that on his form. He told me it was impossible and he had to put _something_. I'm not sure what he ultimately wrote. Of course he let me go, because what the hell are you going to do someone 20 miles from the nearest road short of calling a helicopter.

Having no address makes the government's brain explode.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#633

Post by muaytimbo »

frankfrankfrank wrote: post #333
joshvm wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can visit for 90 days but what you're allowed to do is restricted to tourism and "temporary business". 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…

I propose people start reconsidering this imposed situation that exists between the people who do the work and the government, i.e. the parasitic ruling class. And to clarify, I say that as someone who is not at all “leftist” oriented, even though it may seem so at first glance of reading that to some. This situation we currently essentially globally have, at least in the west, is quite an abusive system that is real…

I get the analogy many others here intentionally miss. Usurping the value of your labor by force. Most of us in America work >4 months a year with all that value stolen by the parasite class. How many months will we accept until, instead of theft, we call it slavery?

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#634

Post by hattmall »

mfkp wrote: post #138
hattmall wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, Office depot will handle it for you for $6 an employee per compensation period.

Do you have a link for more information on this? I'm curious and would like to look into it.

https://officedepot.company.com/payroll

Not sure the pricing structure, but I remember office depot having an advertisement, it was probably like "As Low as $6" per pay period. Ths site says $70 a month but that's probably the minimum for the whole company. Then per check fees.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#635

Post by matchbok »

lultimouomo wrote: post #492
dannyw wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Build more apartments.

Building more apartments has a huge environmental impact. Also it can severely impact the beauty of a city. Building them if there is an actual housing shortage? Sure! Building them so people from the silicon valley can be digital nomads? Hell no.

Are you a housing planner? Do you have a degree in economics/market studies?

Also, building apartments has a huge environmental impact? Ok?.... So does rural sprawl? So does... everything? There is nothing inherently more damaging about those.

Beauty of a city? Cities are cities because of apartments. And you want.. fewer of them? Perhaps you would enjoy the suburbs more?

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#636

Post by bombcar »

bell-cot wrote: post #568
bombcar wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting case - if you write a book on holiday, but not on contract, and then sell it later when you return, where did the work occur? Where did the taxable event occur?

For that specific case, it is tempting to look to securities law, and the "when did something clearly become valuable?" concept. 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 r…

I bet the only industry that has some guidance on this is the movie/tv industry - and even then I bet a lot of it falls on the incomes of the employees actually filming on location, etc.

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.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#637

Post by poslathian »

Aeolun wrote: post #207
somethoughts wrote: post #112

I'm kinda of curious how this works if you are remote: "Most of you should expect to gather in person every quarter for about a week at a time. Some roles, especially senior roles, will be expected to gather more often. We’ll do our best to define windows when most large team off-sites will occur and give you plenty of notice so you can make it work with personal and family plans." Is this like just plan to be in the…

> If its the latter then that seems like it might be a non-starter for people with families. Another new and perfectly legal way to discriminate!

Are you suggesting it would be better if jobs requiring travel were illegal because they represent a loophole to discriminate against people with families?

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#638

Post by vmception »

teirce wrote: post #618
vmception wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that its supposed to feel good but that verbatim reading isn't really whats happening. Over the past two years lots of people left the SFBA, Seattle, NYC etc. They didn't move to the US Bible Belt they went to islands, Miami, Austin, Southern California.... so to keep talent and get some of the other talent back, they released this statement. about nomads. It's not about people with feeble parents and hea…

Of course it is in the company's interest. That's why they are doing it. I used my life in the bible belt as an anecdotal example, but it can apply to many places. Disparaging a company's move just because - acktualllly it benefits them - will have you hating every business on the planet. My point here is they didn't _have_ to do this. Places like Google and Apple are all but telling remote workers to kick rocks. Oth…

I'm not disparaging it, I'm saying you're reading it wrong, following my supposition that it is easy to read this wrong.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#639

Post by gongdzhauh »

bko wrote: post #590
throwawaygh wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also why are you optimizing for lower rents... What about the homeowners who benefit from having more things they can do with their property? Because basic shelter is WAY lower on the hierarchy of needs than rental income, and shelter is not a need that the US is adequately meeting even for its middle class.

If you think the US should be doing more the shelter people without adequate shelter it should do so directly. Creating market distortions that purposely reduces the value of property and discourages production of the good is not the way to go. That would be like banning expensive restaurants because they're running up rent on inexpensive restaurants and soup kitchens. After all, desert is way lower on the hierarchy…

What kind of actions are you considering that do not affect the market? Government housing affects the market by creating artificial supply. Regulations affect the market. just about anything that the government does will affect the market.

If you believe that housing is a basic right and everyone should be housed, then relying on supply and demand is not going to work. There's nothing inherent about a market that would house everyone, if anything, a market would reach an equilibrium where supply meets demand at some point where some people are not able to afford the supply and suppliers do not have an incentive/are unable to meet the price point of the remaining demand.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#640

Post by dheera »

schrodinger wrote: post #596
dheera wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't saying avoid taxes -- mostly just that the "90 day" thing is nonsense, because if you're a remote employee, you're effectively just a really intelligent amoeba on the face of the Earth without a well-defined location. 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, o…

Thailand has a right to care. You're earning money and not paying taxes to their roads, police, fire department, etc—all the things govt provides. When you're a true tourist, you are likely making up for this by boosting the local economy.

Usually by being someone with money and spending it on rent, food, etc. you're already making up for this.

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.

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