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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?

#111

Post by mrweasel »

ralgozino wrote: post #71
mrweasel wrote: post #38

Is there some reason to not apply for a job in an EU country? $60.000 is pretty low and getting hired in another EU country (assuming you're in the EU of cause) might be easier than getting hired by a US based company.

Where's €60000 pretty low? In Italy at least €60000 a year before taxes is kind of a very high salary and hard to get. The average salary for a DevOps Engineer according to Glassdoor is 35000 a year.

Pretty low might be an overstatement, but €60.000 it is in the lower end for an experienced SRE, DevOps engineer or developer in Denmark. I'd say it's a reasonable salary for someone with a few years of experience. Personally I'd expect something like €80.500 per year as a devops or SRE, and I'm not that good.

€35.000 per year... You could make that as a cleaner or by working the cash register at a supermarket (you might need to take a few extra shifts, but it's certainly possible).

The good news is that the Danish IT industry is short on qualified people and can deal with you not speaking Danish.

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

#112

Post by sarchertech »

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).

This is an incorrect interpretation of the law.

The IRS will look at this situation and determine either the owner of the LLC is a de facto employee or not.

Whether they are billing though an LLC or not is not one of the factors.

Here’s a quick read about the topic: https://www.trimprulaw.com/an-individual-who-has-an-llc-is-a...

“Just because an individual which is engaged by a business has an LLC, does not mean that the DoL will classify that person as an independent contractor.”

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

#113

Post by brtkdotse »

bitL wrote: post #99
arnvald wrote: post #3

To get 60k/y you don't even need to work for a US company - it'll be much easier to find something in Germany or UK because of the time zone. Heck, even Polish companies offer this kind of salaries these days (they also post salary ranges most of the time so you can check it) and they're often very remote-friendly

Heh, you probably haven't read horror stories from TeamBlind where Google Warsaw was paying like $25k/year... My guess is that the op wants to stay in Poland but work for at least $60k instead of moving to Germany/UK where 60k is a poverty line.

> 60k is a poverty line

I suspect you’re probably being facetious, but it’s borderline distasteful towards those on the actual poverty line.

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

#114

Post by sarchertech »

csmpltn wrote: post #110
Luc wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 contractu…

There is a 20 part test that covers whether you are considered an employee of the engaging company.

Whether the engaging company pays you directly or pays an LLC you own is not part of that test.

If the IRS or a local government decides that you are being treated as an employee of the company, they will ignore the intermediate LLC.

Think about your argument for a second. If it holds true, employment laws are useless.

Single owner LLCs are pass through entities and they have no obligations to pay minimum wage, overtime, unemployment insurance etc…

If your interpretation of the law stood, every company would simply require each employee to form an LLC and pay each employee as an independent contractor.

In fact many companies do try this, and the IRS and state departments of labor go after them for it regularly.

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

#115

Post by csmpltn »

sarchertech wrote: post #109
csmpltn wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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 fact…

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

I strongly disagree, it's not a loophole, it's literally one of the most used incorporation methods in Norway ("aksjeselskap", or "AS"): https://www.altinn.no/en/start-and-run-business/planning-sta...

This model isn't unique to Norway. Plenty of other countries offer similar incorporation methods.

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

#116

Post by brtkdotse »

tomwojcik wrote: post #34

Pole here. $60k/yr is a slighly above average salary for a senior backend engineer in Poland so I think you're looking too far. It's much easier to find an even better offer from DACH countries. I know people from Poland who work remotely for the US. Even though salary is much better ($120k is a starter), you need to assume you will be expected to participate in late night meetings, on-calls and in general assume muc…

> $60k/yr is a slighly above average salary for a senior backend engineer in Poland

I don't doubt you, but do you have a link with the source for this? I'd love to have it for a discussion in another forum :)

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

#117

Post by sarchertech »

csmpltn wrote: post #115
sarchertech wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fact…

> "What you’re describing is an often attempted loophole, and there’s plenty of precedent that it doesn’t hold up." I strongly disagree, it's not a loophole, it's literally one of the most used incorporation methods in Norway ("aksjeselskap", or "AS"): https://www.altinn.no/en/start-and-run-business/planning-sta... This model isn't unique to Norway. Plenty of other countries offer similar incorporation methods.

The incorporation method isn’t the loophole. Paying someone through a corporation (regardless of its pass through status) and then treating them as an employee is the the attempted loophole. In the US and many other countries it doesn’t work.

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

#118

Post by csmpltn »

sarchertech wrote: post #114
csmpltn wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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 contractu…

There is a 20 part test that covers whether you are considered an employee of the engaging company. Whether the engaging company pays you directly or pays an LLC you own is not part of that test. If the IRS or a local government decides that you are being treated as an employee of the company, they will ignore the intermediate LLC. Think about your argument for a second. If it holds true, employment laws are useless.…

> "Single owner LLCs are pass through entities and they have no obligations to pay minimum wage, overtime, unemployment insurance etc…"

Perhaps an LLC (which is a pass-through entity) is the wrong structure to use here then. Perhaps a C-Corp would be more suitable?

Here's one example of what I'm referring to: https://www.altinn.no/en/start-and-run-business/planning-sta...

> "If your interpretation of the law stood, every company would simply require each employee to form an LLC and pay each employee as an independent contractor."

But that's exactly how companies hire external contractors today, so I'm not sure why you're suggesting there's anything wrong here?

The reason companies don't require each and every employee to form an LLC is because it makes things more difficult for everybody - not because it's illegal. Direct employment is much easier to manage, hence it's more popular. I don't see your point?

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

#119

Post by tomwojcik »

brtkdotse wrote: post #116
tomwojcik wrote: post #34

Pole here. $60k/yr is a slighly above average salary for a senior backend engineer in Poland so I think you're looking too far. It's much easier to find an even better offer from DACH countries. I know people from Poland who work remotely for the US. Even though salary is much better ($120k is a starter), you need to assume you will be expected to participate in late night meetings, on-calls and in general assume muc…

> $60k/yr is a slighly above average salary for a senior backend engineer in Poland I don't doubt you, but do you have a link with the source for this? I'd love to have it for a discussion in another forum :)

Sure. justjoin.it is the leading job offers board for IT professionals in Poland.

Here's their detailed report from 2021 https://bucket.justjoin.it/Raport_wynagrodzen_polskich_progr...

There's no data for 2022 yet, but just have a look at the board. Filters: senior, b2b, python. 25_000 PLN (monthly salary) == $60k / y. Taxes not deducted, but assume ~10%.

https://justjoin.it/all/python/senior?employmentType=b2b&tab...

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

#120

Post by csmpltn »

sarchertech wrote: post #117
csmpltn wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "What you’re describing is an often attempted loophole, and there’s plenty of precedent that it doesn’t hold up." I strongly disagree, it's not a loophole, it's literally one of the most used incorporation methods in Norway ("aksjeselskap", or "AS"): https://www.altinn.no/en/start-and-run-business/planning-sta... This model isn't unique to Norway. Plenty of other countries offer similar incorporation methods.

The incorporation method isn’t the loophole. Paying someone through a corporation (regardless of its pass through status) and then treating them as an employee is the the attempted loophole. In the US and many other countries it doesn’t work.

> "Paying someone through a corporation (regardless of its pass through status) and then treating them as an employee is the attempted loophole"

But isn't that exactly how consultancies work though? The client enters into a contractual agreement with the consultancy, asking for specific consultants to help the client get certain tasks done. The consultants are "treated as employees" in the sense that they often have to physically work with the client, on the client's projects, during the client's schedules, having lunch in the client's canteen, working with the client's team, reporting to the client directly, using the client's tools and processes, creating IP for the client, etc.

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