Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
blog.stackoverflow.com
Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
1–10 of 114 posts
Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
#2I wonder what the legal issues are for an American company having cross-border employees. How do they take care of national insurance and income taxes etc for their UK-based employee when (presumably) they have no legal presence there? How does this work for them?
Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
#3And if someone is in the US on a 6 month tourist visa working for a Japanese company (no US presence, paid by invoice) remotely, is their legal status in the US in jeopardy?
Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
#4I wonder what the legal issues are for an American company having cross-border employees. How do they take care of national insurance and income taxes etc for their UK-based employee when (presumably) they have no legal presence there? How does this work for them?
We do have UK presence now. :) I don't know how these things worked out with other people before that, but I can speak about myself.
I'm one of the community managers at SE and I work from my home in Canada where Stack Exchange does not (yet?) have an office. My arrangement is basically that I send in an invoice every month like any contractor would and it is up to me to take care of my own taxes and so on.
Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
#5Likewise if someone is a Japanese citizen, with official residency in Japan, and is in the US as a tourist or a student, and works remotely for a German company, a Canadian company, and a Guatemalan company, and gets paid by wire transfer to his bank account in Japan from his three clients... is he breaking the law in one or more countries? Perhaps there will be a telecommute country, with laws designed to let telecommuters live easily. Like incorporating in Delaware for companies.
Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
#6I wonder what the legal issues are for an American company having cross-border employees. How do they take care of national insurance and income taxes etc for their UK-based employee when (presumably) they have no legal presence there? How does this work for them?
I work for Stack Exchange in Germany (where they have no presence except for me), and I'm a regular employee with all German taxes, social security etc. that entails. These things can be made to work.
Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
#7I wonder what the legal issues are for an American company having cross-border employees. How do they take care of national insurance and income taxes etc for their UK-based employee when (presumably) they have no legal presence there? How does this work for them?
I work for Stack Exchange in Germany (where they have no presence except for me), and I'm a regular employee with all German taxes, social security etc. that entails. These things can be made to work.
How do they do this? I seem to be having a mental block as to the logistics of this. (On a side note, the pragmatics of having cross border employees when you have no presence in that country would be a very, very interesting blog post, and one I'd read with interest.)
From another comment I understand they also have a UK presence. Are you a true-blue employee or a contractor who takes care of their own taxes and affairs, and just issues monthly invoices? If you are an actual employee (in the legal sense), are you employed by the UK or US company, or something else? Do they have to have an address there, or a foreign subsidiary? Presumably there's no German legal entity, so how have they registered there to pay tax?
This is something I'm prospectively interested in doing for my own business, but I'm not sure how I'd make it work from a tax point of view.
Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
#8That's very good.
"and Fog Creek had (at the time) a strict no-remote-workers policy. This drove me crazy. These were amazing employees, in whom the company had already invested deeply, who were now walking out the door because they couldn’t live in New York any more."
"Pain" is a very good teacher. It slaps you in the face and tells you're an idiot.
"Remote working isn’t for everyone. There’s a tendency to think that working from home is all sunshine and rainbows and working in your PJs. It’s not. You miss out on being around people (which wears even on introverts), doing fun stuff like playing ping-pong or having lunch together, and (sometimes hardest of all) you lose a clear distinction between work and the rest of your life"
Yes, absolutely. That's why even if I'm hired for a remote position I'll find a way to not work from home (at least not every day).
Go to a cafe, somewhere, or just hire a shared space/shared office.
You'll still commute, but to a place near you. You don't get distracted by house stuff. You can concentrate better. You can meet new people, depending on the place, and even getting from your house to somewhere helps 'tune out' of work for a little bit of time.
Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
#9I wonder what the legal issues are for an American company having cross-border employees. How do they take care of national insurance and income taxes etc for their UK-based employee when (presumably) they have no legal presence there? How does this work for them?
I'd love to hear more on this too.
Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I work for Stack Exchange in Germany (where they have no presence except for me), and I'm a regular employee with all German taxes, social security etc. that entails. These things can be made to work.
How do they do this? I seem to be having a mental block as to the logistics of this. (On a side note, the pragmatics of having cross border employees when you have no presence in that country would be a very, very interesting blog post, and one I'd read with interest.) From another comment I understand they also have a UK presence. Are you a true-blue employee or a contractor who takes care of their own taxes and aff…
I may be wrong, but if they have a presence in the UK they most likely do not need a presence in Germany. Through EU agreements, Germans are allowed to work legally in the UK.