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Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

money.yahoo.com

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Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#151

Post by pault »

dominotw wrote: post #124
throwaway894345 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> does your current employer still pay you US salary if you live in ireland? Yes, but this varies by company, and is predicated on the assumption that the move wouldn’t interfere with my job performance. E.g., I would still work my normal US hours because my job requires some amount of communication with my team.

Most employers, HR and payroll aren't willing to deal with taxes, labor laws ect across different countries. I am really surprised that some employers are willing to go such great lengths.

Most don't ask questions. In my case I used my mom's address and lived abroad. When you file your taxes and you've been outside of the US for most of the year, you get all of your federal withholding refunded. I'm sure this would not stand up to scrutiny, but I did it for eight years and never had any trouble.

Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#152

Post by unishark »

MrPowers wrote: post #126
edanm wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(not a lawyer or accountant, but know a bit about this) That depends on the country. Some (I imagine most?) countries have deals with each other when it comes to taxation, to avoid double taxation. So if you're earning a salary in, say, Israel, then you only have to pay US taxes on money that hasn't already been income-taxed in Israel. Therefore, whether you're paying more taxes than locals depends on whether the tax…

Most countries follow territorial / residence based taxation. People that live in the country are taxed in that country. An Italian that lives in Italy pays tax to Italy. An Italian that lives in the US, pays tax to the US. A couple of countries have worldwide / citizen taxation (i.e. the US). A US citizen that lives in Singapore will pay tax to both Singapore and the US. They pay tax to Singapore and can claim a tax…

> A couple of countries have worldwide / citizen taxation (i.e. the US). A US citizen that lives in Singapore will pay tax to both Singapore and the US. They pay tax to Singapore and can claim a tax credit on their US tax return. They can also claim the foreign earned income exclusion deduction.

So it ends up working out like residence-based taxation for most people anyway, but with more steps? Except I guess if the country has a lower tax rate than the US, then you'd need to pay the difference?

Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#153

Post by pault »

nness wrote: post #16
cheeze wrote: post #8

> Mottley addressed the concern: “In terms of broadband, we have two major telecommunications companies, and at the same time we are looking to see how we can continue to boost our national television station and move it from being a broadcasting entity to digital services.” Not... the most inspiring, but maybe the internet is good? That would be my biggest worry. It's an absolute must have.

I'd imagine the internet just has to be good enough to have video calls and transfer the occasional large file for 90% of people. I think life on a Caribbean island would be enough reason to ditch our usual high bandwidth vices like gaming and streaming for just a year.

I lived on an island in Belize for five years while working remotely. I had a 4G dongle that gave me about 100/25 most of the time, good enough for Netflix and video calls. SSH into a server into the states was rough though.

Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#154

Post by justinclift »

erikw wrote: post #54
throwaway894345 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to work remotely from Europe. I would think it would be in the interest of European countries to make this kind of arrangement because I would be spending my cushy US salary on European goods and services and not taking a job away from a European.

Many countries have a minimum salary limit which qualifies you (and potentially your family) to live there. For example, last I looked into it several years ago, Spain's minimum salary for a remote working visa was USD $36,000.

That's awesome. Didn't know that was even a thing.

Spain is the country I wanted to move to anyway, which Brexit destroyed my hopes of.

For anyone else that finds this potentially interesting, this seems useful:

https://balcellsgroup.com/work-remotely-from-spain/

https://balcellsgroup.com/non-lucrative-residency/

(note that they're just the first links showing up in DDG, so there might be better ones around)

Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#155

Post by dominotw »

pault wrote: post #150
dominotw wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really shocked by this. I had no idea there are employers who doesn't adjust your salary from US salary if you move to an entirely different country. all the examples i know of like gitlab, mozilla ect adjust it to local country comp. anyone know if such an employer actually exists in US?

I have worked for several small startups in Seattle and the bay area that didn't say anything about me being in Brazil, Thailand, and Belize. In each case I was earning around $120k/yr on salary.

Sure but did you change your payroll address? What was the address on your payroll?

Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#156

Post by cromka »

Nursie wrote: post #110
zachthewf wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really cool. Do you have to pay income taxes in Spain if you do that?

Yes, I would think so. The US is the only country I know of that demands income taxes from its citizens when they are non-resident. Citizens of most countries would expect to pay local income taxes only when they emigrate.

Although it is important to remember that any tax one would have to pay to US IRS is for the difference between what a foreign country and US would charge, if former charged less. This only applies to countries with which US signed a treaty for the avoidance of double taxation.

Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#157

Post by cpursley »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #67
cpursley wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you're still liable for social security.

No, you only pay SS if you are resident.

For most situations, you're liable:

https://brighttax.com/blog/do-us-expats-pay-medicare-tax/

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/soci...

Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#158

Post by pault »

dominotw wrote: post #155
pault wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have worked for several small startups in Seattle and the bay area that didn't say anything about me being in Brazil, Thailand, and Belize. In each case I was earning around $120k/yr on salary.

Sure but did you change your payroll address? What was the address on your payroll?

Sorry, I replied to one of your other comments but didn't mention it here: no, I used my mom's address. I had all of my mail sent there, mostly lived in monthly rentals, and renewed my tourist visa whenever it was up. When I did go back to the US I stayed with my mom, and I kept most of my stuff there, so you could make a good faith argument that it was my primary residence (in the US).

I'm pretty sure the only gray area in this arrangement is "working in the US" while staying in another country on a tourist visa, but it's pretty ambiguous. I'm working for a US company and getting direct deposits to a US bank as a US citizen. If I am on a trip to another country and I sign into my company's VPN for a work-related video conference, and maybe fix some bugs, am I working illegally? Maybe, but immigration laws aren't really written with that scenario in mind.

This is a topic that frequently came up in conversations with ex-pats, since once you start doing this you'll end up meeting lots of other remote workers doing the same thing. On the one hand, you are injecting a lot of money from your home country into the local economy, which increases GDP and supports local businesses. On the other, you are using public services without paying taxes to the host country. In practice, you can't use services like universal healthcare or free education without being a legal resident, so it's debatable whether your presence is a net negative for the local economy. It's probably not legal, but like I said, the immigration laws don't take this scenario into account. I was forthright with all of the immigration officials I spoke to and all of them just kind of shrugged their shoulders and renewed my tourist visa anyway. I figured that some countries would start writing new legislation and creating new types of visas to take advantage of this scenario, and we can see this happening now.

If your question is "is this legal", the answer is "it's complicated, but probably not". If you're asking if it's possible to do this long term, the answer is yes, it's not only possible but pretty easy. I was able to do this for almost a decade with no issues whatsoever. I'm glad that some countries are starting to think about this, because I'd much rather live with confidence that my work situation is accounted for than have to wonder if my residence there is dependent on the interpretation of each individual in the immigration department.

Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#159

Post by pault »

dominotw wrote: post #125
jsjohnst wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anyone know if such an employer actually exists in US? Yes. I’ve personally seen it happen multiple times at different employers, each with unique factors. There are way to many factors at play here to make broad assumptions that no employer does it... - first and foremost, Covid changed everything when it comes to remote salary norms - Duration of move (some employers would be more lenient for 6-12mo vs permanent…

> There are way to many factors at play here to make broad assumptions that no employer does it... Yes you can make broad assumptions that almost no hr, payroll, legal dept of any company is setup to deal with taxes, labor laws ect across hundreds of different countries. Yes exceptions exist. > - it’s important enough to mention again, Covid changed everything. No it didn't. Do you have even a single example of an em…

In my case, a company called Pathable based out of Seattle, a company called Optify based out of Seattle, and a company called iCracked based out of San Francisco. I don't know what the heads of their HR departments would say if you asked them, but everyone I worked with was aware of my situation and no one ever questioned it.

Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#160

Post by seanmcdirmid »

cpursley wrote: post #157
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you only pay SS if you are resident.

For most situations, you're liable: https://brighttax.com/blog/do-us-expats-pay-medicare-tax/ https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/soci...

No, not even close: most expats do not pay social security taxes abroad. If you work for the USA embassy, you pay SS tax, but if you work for Microsoft China, you do not (you do, however, pay Chinese SS of course). In particular, see https://www.hrblock.com/expat-tax-preparation/resource-cente...

> If you are working for a foreign employer who has no requirement to withhold U.S. social security, you have no obligation to remit U.S. social security taxes on your earnings and in fact, are prohibited from making such voluntary contributions to the U.S. Social Security System.

Almost every US company has it setup that you are going to be working for a foreign employer, not a US one.

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