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Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?

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Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?

#101

Post by tluyben2 »

bitL wrote: post #97
tluyben2 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not my rules or ideas… if you try to invoice different companies to get around defacto employee rules we have here, then it is fraud; you probably won’t get caught. It’s not fraud ‘for me’, it is for the tax office of my country and, as other people have said, also maybe for the employer side. So I play it safe to make sure it’s neither, however, that is far different from taking a contractor job for one client for a…

I really think you are mixing completely unrelated things together. Just a thought experiment: there is a company that has no office/contact in the EU. Is a NL-based freelancer prohibited from working for them? In other words, is the freelancer prohibited from exporting their work to the country of origin of that company or not? You keep applying laws for companies operating in NL to any arbitrary company operating e…

You can of course but there are rules that you need to follow for the tax office; if they mark you as defacto employee in NL for a US company, different taxation applies. You are marked as not an entrepreneur or company in that case and you will be taxed (a lot) more. I didn’t say anywhere it is illegal or prohibited anyway (I just said you will be flagged as defacto employee which brings consequences); it is just not very smart as you will have all the bad things and none/little of the good things working like that.

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?

#102

Post by mkl95 »

jstx1 wrote: post #96
mkl95 wrote: post #59

Build your resume and your Github repos and they will come. I get cold emailed with job offers for US companies once in a while. When your LinkedIn profile has keywords like "senior" and "lead" you start getting scraped.

> When your LinkedIn profile has keywords like "senior" and "lead" you start getting scraped. And some people still say that titles don't matter.

They definitely matter to recruiters and their web spiders. The meme that has been circulating recently about LinkedIn job descriptions vs the actual jobs is deeper than it seems.

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?

#103

Post by haney »

The engineering team at Invisible Technologies hires globally and pays above that salary range you listed (we’re US based)

We’d love to talk to you, you can either apply here https://www.invisible.co/invisible-engineering or email me personally (my email is my HN username @invisible.co)

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?

#104

Post by [deleted] »

sarchertech wrote: post #85
csmpltn wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "False self-employment is a situation in which somebody registered as self-employed, a freelancer, or a temp is de facto an employee carrying out a professional activity under the authority and subordination of another company. Such false self-employment is often a way to circumvent social welfare and employment legislation, for example by avoiding employer's social security and income tax contributions." Could you…

A company wants an employee, they plan on treating this person as an employee. However the company doesn’t want to pay the additional costs required by regulation. Payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, dealing with tax withholding, overtime where applicable, family leave requirements etc… So they hire a contractor instead and pay them as a 1099 contractor, or the contractor sets up an LLC and they pay the LLC, or an…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?

#105

Post by csmpltn »

sarchertech wrote: post #85
csmpltn wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "False self-employment is a situation in which somebody registered as self-employed, a freelancer, or a temp is de facto an employee carrying out a professional activity under the authority and subordination of another company. Such false self-employment is often a way to circumvent social welfare and employment legislation, for example by avoiding employer's social security and income tax contributions." Could you…

A company wants an employee, they plan on treating this person as an employee. However the company doesn’t want to pay the additional costs required by regulation. Payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, dealing with tax withholding, overtime where applicable, family leave requirements etc… So they hire a contractor instead and pay them as a 1099 contractor, or the contractor sets up an LLC and they pay the LLC, or an…

It's the LLC's or S-Corp's responsibility to deal with everything you've mentioned, not your client's. Your client is simply purchasing a service from your LLC or S-Corp, with a contract. The contract must not stand in violation of your local tax and employment laws.

It's a standard case of one company (a third-party) purchasing the services of another (a company you simultaneously both own, and are employed at).

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?

#106

Post by csmpltn »

sarchertech wrote: post #83
csmpltn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Just wrapping people in shell companies doesn’t usually avoid the legal tests for whether someone is being treated as an employee or contractor AFAIK." What does "wrapping people in shell companies" mean? As a person, you're either employed for a "shell company", in which case you've signed a contract and you get paid a salary - or you're the owner of a "shell company", in which case you get to choose how to manag…

What you’re talking about happens in the US as well, and courts have held that whether you are billing through a corporation or not doesn’t impact whether you are a de facto employee. e.g., the owner of an LLC who bills through the LLC can still be found to be a de facto employee. It doesn’t matter that you pay income taxes, what matters is that the employer isn’t paying payroll taxes, withholding income taxes, payin…

> "It doesn’t matter that you pay income taxes, what matters is that the employer isn’t paying payroll taxes, withholding income taxes, paying unemployment insurance etc."

I think we're talking past eachother here.

The employer, in this case, is you (a company you own). You're also the only employee (a private person employed by that same company you own).

If your company decides to pay you a salary, your company must also deduct taxes, social security, benefits, payroll taxes, income taxes, pension, etc.

Your company must ensure the terms of your employment are compliant with all laws and regulations.

Your client enters into a contractual agreement to buy a service from your company. They're not responsible for your company's compliance with local laws and regulations. Your company will be charging the client a certain rate (gross), which is usually worked backwards from the "net salary" you as an employee want to make.

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?

#108

Post by Luc »

csmpltn wrote: post #105
sarchertech wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company wants an employee, they plan on treating this person as an employee. However the company doesn’t want to pay the additional costs required by regulation. Payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, dealing with tax withholding, overtime where applicable, family leave requirements etc… So they hire a contractor instead and pay them as a 1099 contractor, or the contractor sets up an LLC and they pay the LLC, or an…

It's the LLC's or S-Corp's responsibility to deal with everything you've mentioned, not your client's. Your client is simply purchasing a service from your LLC or S-Corp, with a contract. The contract must not stand in violation of your local tax and employment laws. It's a standard case of one company (a third-party) purchasing the services of another (a company you simultaneously both own, and are employed at).

> Your client is simply purchasing a service from your LLC or S-Corp, with a contract.

And if that's a fiction, a judge will see straight through it. Ask a lawyer if you don't believe us. I can think of several examples in the news lately in my country of residence.

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?

#109

Post by sarchertech »

csmpltn wrote: post #106
sarchertech wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you’re talking about happens in the US as well, and courts have held that whether you are billing through a corporation or not doesn’t impact whether you are a de facto employee. e.g., the owner of an LLC who bills through the LLC can still be found to be a de facto employee. It doesn’t matter that you pay income taxes, what matters is that the employer isn’t paying payroll taxes, withholding income taxes, payin…

> "It doesn’t matter that you pay income taxes, what matters is that the employer isn’t paying payroll taxes, withholding income taxes, paying unemployment insurance etc." I think we're talking past eachother here. The employer, in this case, is you (a company you own). You're also the only employee (a private person employed by that same company you own). If your company decides to pay you a salary, your company mus…

What you’re describing in the US and in the other jurisdictions I’m aware of essentially doesn’t exist.

The vast majority of single person corporations are pass through entities. There’s no income tax withholding , no salary, no corporate tax etc…

However even in the very rare case where you setup a non pass through entity, if your company only has one source of income and that is you the owner operating as a de facto employee of another corporation, in most jurisdictions that is false self employment.

What you’re describing is an often attempted loophole, and there’s plenty of precedent that it doesn’t hold up.

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?

#110

Post by csmpltn »

Luc wrote: post #108
csmpltn wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the LLC's or S-Corp's responsibility to deal with everything you've mentioned, not your client's. Your client is simply purchasing a service from your LLC or S-Corp, with a contract. The contract must not stand in violation of your local tax and employment laws. It's a standard case of one company (a third-party) purchasing the services of another (a company you simultaneously both own, and are employed at).

> Your client is simply purchasing a service from your LLC or S-Corp, with a contract. And if that's a fiction, a judge will see straight through it. Ask a lawyer if you don't believe us. I can think of several examples in the news lately in my country of residence.

> "And if that's a fiction, a judge will see straight through it."

I never claimed that "pro forma" contracts used for laundering illegitimate business relationships are somehow legal. This feels to me like an entirely separate issue, and I'm not sure how it's related to anything we've discussed so-far?

You can own a company, and simultaneously be the only employee in that company. Your client enters into a contractual agreement to purchase services from your company. Your company must comply with all local laws and regulations as part of your employment in that company. Your company charges the client a fee which, down the line, covers all of the business expenses associated with the work being done (including any taxes that need to be paid, overtime, insurances, pension, social security, etc). I'm still, to this moment, not sure what makes any of this illegal or illegitimate?

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