[pictureperfect]

I've found work on the monthly 'Who's Hiring' posts on HN, and from reading articles posted here by various companies that then had 'we're hiring' links at the bottom.

Thanks to the low Aussie dollar, and having clients in the US, I currently work half the hours and get double the pay I was getting in a full-time development position in Melb.

My advice is to try and find remote work from the US rather than locally. It's a bit more work, and it you might need to spend some effort convincing the company you're worth hiring, but if you have the skills it's not too difficult.

The benefit is that you'll get a much higher rate.

The time differences work out well too if your clients are on the US west-coast (e.g. Silicon Valley). There's an overlap of a few hours in the Melbourne morning with the Californian afternoon. This means I can speak with clients in the morning to provide them with an overview and an update, as well as get feedback and direction on tasks for the day, then I work while they're asleep and send status reports/updates at the end of the day. Then while I'm sleeping, they check out my work and provide any feedback on that, and on next tasks, which is then ready for me first thing in the morning, and so the process repeats.

You do have the worry about finding clients, but if you are reliable and do good work then you can start to build up a regular client base.

You'll also want to have a good Internet connection for video calls and screen sharing. If you're 3 zones away from an exchange, and/or have a connection that drops out in the rain it'll make connecting with customers much more difficult.

[joshschreuder]

How does the taxation work if you're earning foreign money? Do you get income taxed in the US and Australia or just Australia? Sorry for the noobish question, but I am curious.

[pictureperfect]

Australia and the US have tax agreements to avoid double taxation.

So, I have a Pty Ltd company, of which I am the sole director/employee (you can start one of these for a few hundred AUD, and it can all be done online).

For each US client, I fill out and sign a W-8BEN-E form (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw8bene.pdf) which means I don't need a US SSN and the client does not need to withhold any tax from my payments.

Each month, I then bill my US clients for hours worked, which they pay in USD via a foreign exchange broker (I use OFX), which then converts the USD to AUD and deposits it in my company's Australian bank account (this works out much better than an international bank transfer as the exchange rates offered by the broker are far better, and can result in a difference of a few hundred AUD a month).

This AUD gets lodged as income for the company.

Although the company is registered for GST, because the work is for overseas clients, I don't need to charge or collect GST from them.

I then pay myself a salary in AUD, plus the appropriate amount of super. The company deducts the appropriate amount of Australian PAYG tax based on that salary, which is sent to the ATO once a quarter.

The company is then taxed on any profit it makes - but that's typically low/none, because the salary paid to me is an expense for the business, and I can control the amount I get paid so I make sure that income - expenses = 0.

[CyberFonic]

You have to be very wary of Personal Services Income provisions under the ATO rules. You might need some professional advice to make sure you don't get caught out on that score. Lots of one person Pty Ltds get caught out.

[solresol]

I think the poster would be OK, actually. It sounds like they have income coming from several unrelated entities, have the right of refusal for work and a few other things like that. The only things that indicate PSI are: they probably get paid when for fixing a bug that they created; they are probably paid on submission of a timesheet. But overall, it sounds more like a consulting business than an employment arrangement.

[joshschreuder]

Very helpful, thanks for taking the time to answer!

[kondro]

I am not a tax accountant but…

if you're an Australian resident living in Australia, you only get taxed in Australia.

You will need to have an ABN and you may need to be registered to charge GST and do a BAS on a regularly basis if you're earning more than $75k/year however, you don't have to charge GST on income from overseas as far as I am aware.