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I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

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Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#291

Post by OJFord »

dotBen wrote: post #285
OJFord wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird, I just don't see why business-related (or even employment) income in other country X should be any different to investment income, rental income, etc. in other country X.

Not wanting to pick on the parent comment but this is were 'lay person opinion led forums' don't work for legal questions. You may not see why, but that's you conveying your opinion based on common sense or your own reasoning vs the law. The law says that your H1B via only covers you to receive income via your W2 employment with the company the visa is attached to. If you are an H1B holder you can't be employed or co…

Well I never answered anyone's question, tried to, or claimed to be able to. I said IANAL just as you did. I never claimed to have anything other than an opinion. I think I even made it pretty clear that I'm not in the US and don't know how its visas and taxes work.

> A work visa is a permission to take a job out of the US employment pool, and the flaw in the law is that if you are working on your own company (inc side project) abroad, you are not really taking a job out of the US market because you wouldn't have hired anyone anyway.

Exactly. Hence 'I don't see why'. Not legal advice. An opinion that it's (assuming true) dumb. I don't see what the problem is with expressing that opinion on these 'opinion led forums'.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#292

Post by throwAway77783 »

Hi!

I'm currently in the US (Bay area) on a L1B visa. I have been working (coding) on a side project since 2 year and it is almost enough mature to become a startup.

Is there some option to start a company in the US as a L1B? Or will I have to relocate in my home country to do it?

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#294

Post by Trias11 »

cromka wrote: post #290
Trias11 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if she can find a great business or financial opportunity overseas or built successful online business - she can leave USA, return GC and escape the IRS tax racket. Not so fast if she's citizen. Think twice.

She could give up her citizenship then. Why make that decision now if she doesn’t have to?

It's extremely hard, expensive and take very long time to give up US citizenship. Reason? Lots of people are doing so.

Plus you'd have to pay immediate capital gains on EVERYTHING accumulated so far - AS IF you sold it. Rules are brutal, irreversible, little known and expensive.

Think twice. US citizenship could be very expensive mistake, unless person earns very average salary or sits on a welfare.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#295

Post by satya71 »

botverse wrote: post #278

Hi Peter! I work for an American company and we have a distributed team of developers around the world (India, UK, US) and we don’t know if it’s legal for us to come together for a week or two in the states, to plan, bond but also work? Thank you so much for your contributions.

Interesting. My company is in the immigration space and we were considering a product to help distributed remote startups to organize group "off-sites". If you'd like, please reach out on the email in my profile.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#296

Post by phonebanshee »

OJFord wrote: post #291
dotBen wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not wanting to pick on the parent comment but this is were 'lay person opinion led forums' don't work for legal questions. You may not see why, but that's you conveying your opinion based on common sense or your own reasoning vs the law. The law says that your H1B via only covers you to receive income via your W2 employment with the company the visa is attached to. If you are an H1B holder you can't be employed or co…

Well I never answered anyone's question, tried to, or claimed to be able to. I said IANAL just as you did. I never claimed to have anything other than an opinion. I think I even made it pretty clear that I'm not in the US and don't know how its visas and taxes work. > A work visa is a permission to take a job out of the US employment pool, and the flaw in the law is that if you are working on your own company (inc si…

It's way off topic. The Q-and-A here is are about getting actual legal expertise applied to questions, not opinions about how US immigration law is flawed. You're not wrong to say it, it's just that this isn't the place/time.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#297

Post by muzani »

paxys wrote: post #183
proberts wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a gray area but I don't see any issue if you release it for free. Getting paid, even if to cover your expenses, is more problematic, however. I wouldn't say it's a complete non-starter but it would have to be structured very carefully and properly to avoid crossing any lines.

Every attorney I have spoken to in the past has said that something like this is a clear and obvious violation of H-1B visa terms, so I'm curious what the "gray area" you are referring to is.

#444444 as opposed to #808080

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#298

Post by aeonik »

throwaway-09221 wrote: post #22

Hey Peter! Thank you tons for your contributions here! I'm an Indian in the US on an H1B visa and working in software. I've also made a product for fun on weekends (which my company knows about and approves of). I was thinking of opening access to it for the world, but as it'll involve substantial costs on (cloud) infrastructure, I'll have to ask people to pay for usage on it. I don't plan to profit from this in any…

IANAL have you considered building a direct payment mechanism into the platform that allows your hosting provider to pass their costs directly to your clients? Cryptocurrencies might be well suited for such an automated micropayment passthrough service. I'd love to hear probert's take on such a system.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#299

Post by OJFord »

phonebanshee wrote: post #296
OJFord wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I never answered anyone's question, tried to, or claimed to be able to. I said IANAL just as you did. I never claimed to have anything other than an opinion. I think I even made it pretty clear that I'm not in the US and don't know how its visas and taxes work. > A work visa is a permission to take a job out of the US employment pool, and the flaw in the law is that if you are working on your own company (inc si…

It's way off topic. The Q-and-A here is are about getting actual legal expertise applied to questions, not opinions about how US immigration law is flawed. You're not wrong to say it, it's just that this isn't the place/time.

So Ctrl-F for proberts if your time's so valuable.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#300

Post by bialpio »

paxys wrote: post #183
proberts wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a gray area but I don't see any issue if you release it for free. Getting paid, even if to cover your expenses, is more problematic, however. I wouldn't say it's a complete non-starter but it would have to be structured very carefully and properly to avoid crossing any lines.

Every attorney I have spoken to in the past has said that something like this is a clear and obvious violation of H-1B visa terms, so I'm curious what the "gray area" you are referring to is.

IANAL. Can non-citizens run US-based companies? If yes, can't this be done through a company, then OP would just be forbidden from drawing a salary from this entity?
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