[8bitben]

"You have the flexibility to live and work in 170 countries for up to 90 days a year in each location"

I wonder how much of a headache this creates for taxes. One of the biggest factors that keeps me from venturing abroad (and my company from allowing it) in my remote role is the complicated tax situation that arises.

Anyone have experience with this?

[futhey]

Yeah. 90 days and 180 (sometimes 183) days are the magic numbers in most locations, that treat you as a non-resident or tourist. You still technically owe taxes abroad if you work any period of time abroad, but usually, if there is a formal process, it's much, much simpler for remote work on a short-term visa.

90 days is the magic number for almost all countries for the length of a single tourist visa.

The status quo though, is that almost no governments have legal frameworks for a digital nomad to work legally in a country (as a remote employee) on a 90-day tourist visa. Most look the other way for rich, western tourists not "taking jobs from local residents", if it comes up. They mostly use tourist services and the money which could be taxed never enters a local bank account.

I'm curious how AirBnB ends up solving this. Maybe they'll just contract a big consulting firm with broad international exposure to file taxes for each employee paid abroad. It definitely sounds like they're going to try and figure out how to pay taxes on behalf of employees in up to 170 countries, which, will be interesting to watch.

Hopefully some good comes of this.

[latch]

> almost no governments have legal frameworks for a digital nomad to work legally in a country

That's an ... interesting perspective. Put differently, most governments have a legal framework that prevents people from working on tourist visa.

[theshrike79]

I think these are historically for people coming into the country and working in the country at an actual brick and mortar place with actual local people.

If a someone is on a trip abroad and gets a call/email from a customer from another country, they are technically working. Would that require a work visa?

How many emails per day would require a work visa?

The world is changing and laws aren't really keeping up.

[7steps2much]

> If a someone is on a trip abroad and gets a call/email from a customer from another country, they are technically working. Would that require a work visa?

Depends on the country in question of course but many places have different visas:

- Visitor visas: Usually valid for only a couple of days / weeks and geared towards business travelers. These usually allow working in the country.

- Tourist Visas: Usually valid for weeks/months and geared towards tourists.

If you are on the first then working isn't a problem. If you are on the second then (as the name implies) it is kind of assumed that you are a tourist/on vacation and as such won't be doing any work at all.

So to answer your question: If you are on a trip (I interpret this as a couple of days at best) then you won't need a work visa. If you want to stay there for a while though then technically yes.

> The world is changing and laws aren't really keeping up.

Are they though? I think it is fair to say that if you are staying in a country for an extended period of time (longer than a visitor visa) they have a right to tax you.

[theshrike79]

So if I go abroad for two weeks with my family on a Tourist Visa and I respond to work emails and slack messages during the trip while the family is sleeping or resting after a hard day at the beach.

In your opinion the country would have the right to tax me, since I'm in the country on a Tourist Visa and I'm working?

[7steps2much]

Yes. That said, i do also believe that taxation would have to be fair. Assuming you spent less than ten hours on these mails in total that would mean you would "earn" so little that most likely you would have not earned enough to have to pay any tax anyways.

Not to mention that in a situation like this they probably wouldn't come after you anyways, but i think they should still have the right to.

Also please note: This stems mostly from my personal opinion of not doing work outside of work hours unless explicitly agreed to. If I am on a vacation i don't do work unless everything back home is collapsing in a pile of flaming garbage.

[futhey]

It is! There's nothing wrong with the current laws, they're just incomplete. 10-20 years ago, someone who wanted to work a bit while traveling, might have taken a low-end local job, or taught English, to make a little income on the side. So, governments decided how they wanted to handle that.

Now, I can have a US income deposited into a US bank account, and decide to temporarily move somewhere for 6-12 months, either with my employers permission, without, or as a freelancer who doesn't need to worry about this.

100% this breaks the rules of a tourist visa, yet it's commonplace. And most governments have no alternative visa. Not because they legitimately want to ban tourists from working for a couple of months from their overpriced AirBnB & spending money like a tourist, but because it's not yet addressed by most travel or immigration frameworks.

[rhacker]

I'm in "Florida".

[toomuchtodo]

Yeah, this is accepting some digital nomad hacks (Florida as your “home” state [or another no income tax state like TN or SD], skating by on tourist visas when traveling, hence the 90 days stipulation) until digital nomad acceptance increases (~46 countries are issuing visas to nomads who have a remote gig from a quick web search).

(not an endorsement of any specific legal or immigration actions)

[refurb]

r/digitalnomads has some interesting data points on people's IPs and VPNs being flagged as "outside the US".

[toomuchtodo]

You’ll definitely want to get ground truth from your org if you should be routing through a friendly residential connection in your org’s jurisdiction while traveling.

[simulate-me]

It depends where you want to go. For instance, you can work remotely from Canada in many circumstances.

[digianarchist]

The UK too. I was actually banned from the /r/IWantOut subreddit recently for suggesting such even though it's Home Office advice [0] (under Remote Work).

[0] - https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

[bkor]

That just implies that the origin country (UK) is ok with someone working remotely. You're still bound to the laws of the destination country. Further, there's a difference between what's easily possible (nobody will easily notice if you work from another country on a tourist visa) vs what is legal.

[simulate-me]

In Canada, it's expressly legal to travel and work remotely (depending on the work). You can read the Canadian government's definition of work (in the context of requiring a work permit) here: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/co...

> “Work” is defined in the Regulations as an activity for which wages are paid or commission is earned, or that competes directly with activities of Canadian citizens or permanent residents in the Canadian labour market.

The key part is that most remote work doesn't compete directly with the Canadian labor market.

> What kind of activities are not considered to be “work”?

> long distance (by telephone or Internet) work done by a temporary resident whose employer is outside Canada and who is remunerated from outside Canada;

[digianarchist]

Sorry I'm not following. This is Home Office advice to visitors to the UK not for UK citizens visiting other countries.

[electroly]

I assume the 90 day limit is specifically to avoid dealing with actual foreign residents.