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Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

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691–700 of 736 posts

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#691
post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, AirBnb helped destroy housing for citizens where I live. It's now almost impossible for a local to find decent housing in my city. I know this is also fault of the administration and the landlords themselves, but I won't certainly ever feel any pity for this multinational. AirBnb is basically another mean of accruing wealth in the hands of landowners, while people who don't own anything are now in an even har…

> AirBnb is basically another mean of accruing wealth in the hands of landowners, while people who don't own anything are now in an even harder situation, so I'm happy someone is stealing something from AirBnb, they negatively "disrupted" the lives of milions in order to create their market. Wait, in whose pockets did tourists's money end up before Airbnb? In the pockets of non-landowners? No, in the pockets of hotel…

But it did so in the same way Uber turned the taxi business into a casual labor market which is bad for both workers and customers - by breaking local ordinances designed to maintain professional and community standards, circumventing attempts to regulate it, battling and overwhelming city councils and local residents' groups one jurisdiction at a time, with hedge fund financed legal battles to overturn laws that existed specifically because people who lived in those places had voted for them, and then essentially turn those people into a minority vote in their own communities.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#692
post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just your city. It's happening everywhere. I'm a homeowner and I absolutely hate it. It destroys daily life and livability. I would never rent my house on it - or, frankly, to anyone who wasn't like me and wanted to stay a long time and live there and respect the place. People see a quick buck and take it, and don't give a shit, but they're driving their own property values down. [edit] What I mean is, I don…

>but they're driving their own property values down. Property values don't matter when I get a return of 2-4x my mortage by using AirBnB. The income you are able to generate through AirBnB is very enticing.

So is the income you can generate by letting an oil company come frack on your ranch, but it's still pretty shortsighted.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#693
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you have an employee in another state, you are usually required to incorporate or register with the state and then do the filings for that state. I don’t think this office depot thing handles that part for you. In fact, not even Gusto did this and that’s one of the reasons we had to switch to a PEO instead.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with taxing consumption is that it's pretty regressive. Not to say that there aren't solutions, but the existing sales tax, gas tax, etc aren't it.

Taxing consumption instead of investments and savings seems like it would guide society more towards saving and investment instead of short-term consumption, though, no? Personally I'd rather not have taxes at all, but if you forced me to pick on of the three I'd pick consumption every time.

how do you want to pay for roads?

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#695
post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not how it works at all. 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 (sam…

The reality of what the law says and what countries and companies do in this case are often very disconnected. 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…

"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.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#697
post #670
post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn’t it illegal to work on a tourist visa anyway?

Most countries have many exceptions. A UK “tourist visa” is called a “Standard Visitor visa.” 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 t…

"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"

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.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#698
post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't just legally avoid taxes by not letting your employer know. Sure, they prob won't know and you'll get away with it, but you're technically breaking the law and an employer won't knowingly condone that. 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.)

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…

The company cares because they have legal obligations as well. Just because you pay for you taxes doesn't mean the employer is in compliance. Just like the US, many employers are obligated to pay additional fee/taxes/payments such as social security etc.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#699
post #626

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'…

Look at California residency requirements. They don't care if you're out of state for most of the year. If your license is from CA, or maybe you vote there, or you opened a bank account years back in CA, they will send you a tax bill.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure when this 90-day rule was written, but I imagine it was written in a time before now with high-performance laptops, video conferencing, common jet travel, and people wanting to work 30 days here, 90 days there, 120 days over there, etc. 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…

> the need to have expiration dates on new laws and regulations. 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 wa…

Maybe this is an indicator that we need a legal infrastructure that supports a progressive, scientific governance Rather than thumbing our noses at new approaches on behalf of defunct political parties
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