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Coinbase is a decentralized company, with no headquarters

blog.coinbase.com

61–70 of 203 posts

Re: Coinbase is a decentralized company, with no headquarters

#61
post #34

How do you do taxes for something like this? Like lots of employees working in lots of different states/countries, no “home base”. Is there an easy way to do it?

Employees don't realize that taxes are the reason companies generally don't allow for remote positions. It's not just payroll taxes at stake. In a nutshell, having an employee in a tax jurisdiction creates a taxable nexus for the company, meaning that they can be subject to income taxes, commercial taxes, sales taxes/VAT, etc., in that jurisdiction. (And note: this has been part of domestic and international tax law…

So in the example if E is in NY, does C have to pay NY income tax on _all_ employees or just employee E?

If E is a salesperson is it complicated because they’re bringing contracts to C in NY or because they might work on Commission?

Re: Coinbase is a decentralized company, with no headquarters

#62
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that it's not "just" handling payroll taxes, unemployment, etc. There can also be paperwork around establishing legal entities which, of course, gets even more challenging as other countries are involved. It's mostly not that big a deal for large employers but it can be a fair bit of overhead for a small company--with the result that they don't want employees just working anywhere. Mitchell Hashim…

There is paperwork, but you don't need to establish a new entity in every state/country where you have an office or employee. You can simply register your existing company as a "foreign" business in all of the jurisdictions where it is not legally incorporated (and this is what most businesses do). Generally, you only have a location-specific business created if there are location-specific benefits acquired, or benef…

I don't have any personal experience but this is what Mitchell Hashimoto wrote a few years ago on the general topic of hiring remote:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17022563

Re: Coinbase is a decentralized company, with no headquarters

#63

Too bad coinabase\s approach to crypto is centralized. They operate a blocklists to prevent people from sending funds to certain addresses . Even paypal does not do this.

PayPal literally limits/bans your account if you have the word "Iran" in a transaction, lol.

Re: Coinbase is a decentralized company, with no headquarters

#64
post #49

Too bad coinabase\s approach to crypto is centralized. They operate a blocklists to prevent people from sending funds to certain addresses . Even paypal does not do this.

Dumb question: How is such a block even effective? What keeps you from creating a temporary wallet outside Coinbase, sending your funds there from Coinbase and then sending the funds from the wallet to the blocked address?

Nothing keeps you from doing that, but Coinbase can easily detect that after the fact, and then ban you from using their service.

Re: Coinbase is a decentralized company, with no headquarters

#65
post #34

How do you do taxes for something like this? Like lots of employees working in lots of different states/countries, no “home base”. Is there an easy way to do it?

Employees don't realize that taxes are the reason companies generally don't allow for remote positions. It's not just payroll taxes at stake. In a nutshell, having an employee in a tax jurisdiction creates a taxable nexus for the company, meaning that they can be subject to income taxes, commercial taxes, sales taxes/VAT, etc., in that jurisdiction. (And note: this has been part of domestic and international tax law…

Does it work the other way around, too? E.g., if live in New Hampshire and work remotely for a New York company, do I have to pay the NY income tax?

Re: Coinbase is a decentralized company, with no headquarters

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees don't realize that taxes are the reason companies generally don't allow for remote positions. It's not just payroll taxes at stake. In a nutshell, having an employee in a tax jurisdiction creates a taxable nexus for the company, meaning that they can be subject to income taxes, commercial taxes, sales taxes/VAT, etc., in that jurisdiction. (And note: this has been part of domestic and international tax law…

Does it work the other way around, too? E.g., if live in New Hampshire and work remotely for a New York company, do I have to pay the NY income tax?

As I understand it, no--assuming you are not in the office over some threshold (which I don't know). If you commute from NH to Massachusetts you do need to pay MA income tax. And, oh, if you live in MA and commute to NH, you also have to pay MA income tax. I've definitely seen people who live in NH and used to commute to MA switching to being fully remote in the current situation.

Re: Coinbase is a decentralized company, with no headquarters

#67
post #10

We've only been doing mass WFH for a year. Many companies have been saying things very similar to Coinbase, but I'm not sure if long-term mass WFH will prove to that great (for the company, I'd argue it certainly won't be great for the average worker).

Though I often feel my work/life relationship has shifted more towards work since moving full WFH, I am still saving time each day without a commute and also saving money on gas and car maintenance.

Re: Coinbase is a decentralized company, with no headquarters

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing the average worker should watch out for is companies who perform geographically adjustment pay scales. Some WFH companies now even list that as a benefit that they do not do these type of adjustments. I'm not sure what the best answer is to that but feel many are using it as an excuse to pay workers less.

Why wouldn't companies use WFH for their own benefit? They are businesses. I find it weird that western workers somehow imagine that WFH means that they can happily work remote but not compete with other remote workers. The fact is that their big value-add has been the physical contact with the employer, as employers want to interact with their employees f2f for god knows what reason.

It’s very possible to both dislike a thing and not be surprised by it.

Re: Coinbase is a decentralized company, with no headquarters

#70
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will almost certainly be bad for most everyone but company shareholders, unfortunately.

Which most tech workers who get paid in RSUs are?

Which again is only large corporations, right?
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