[remflight]

I read what you wrote and stand by everything that I said. You are advocating tax evasion (not paying taxes to the country and state where you are residing) and breaking the terms of your tourist visa by working.

Your comment in case you edit or delete it:

“ It's also possible to leave your mailing address the same (I like to use a post box) and blur your background on calls and use a VPN router and simply... not tell anyone. Where you sleep really isn't anyone else's business. This whole "you can't work from $PLACE while remote, it's illegal!" thing is super overblown. Just keep your mouth shut and live your life. Your coworkers/customers have no need to know with regards to your physical location.”

[ckdarby]

> Your coworkers/customers have no need to know with regards to your physical location.

From the outside, I think the original author might be implying that it isn't anyone else's business and I will comply with proper tax filings.

I live in Canada, not the USA. My understanding with the IRS is that as long as you properly file with your primary residence and pay owed taxes everything is fine. This assumes you're legal to work for the entity there.

If you work at a company that says, you must live in New York, but you move to Austin, why should the employer be able to say no to that if you're hired under a remote contract? I hear the arguments of security, customer contracts, but then you have executives who travel for work outside of even the country and continue to do work. Double standards.

Even living in another state, why is the employer a part of this conversation? I don't think employers should be apart of the conversation of knowing if an employee is eligible to work for them or not. It should be the government who provides an employee number and as long as you have a valid one the employer shouldn't be involved.

For withholding taxes, the same thing, the employer should pay to the government in reference to the employee number, government withhold and deposit with the individuals configuration.

I know the argument is on the company's liability side regarding state laws, but those should be governed where the entity and employer contract is, not the individual's location.

[remflight]

The company has obligations to the state in terms of additional taxes, unemployment etc. They need to themselves up in order to conduct business in every state and they may fall under the jurisdiction of the laws of that state. There are tons of things that states impose on companies if they register to work in that state so yes they have a right to know.

For example, NY state had VERY different laws and obligations when it comes to a money transfer service. If you transfer money and you aren’t registered in NY state then you obviously don’t need to obey the regulations. For example all board member of the money transfer company need to submit financial documents.

However if an employee moves to NY, then the entire company would fall under the blanket of that because the company would need to register itself in NY. This is just 1 example. Colorado has laws regarding giving pay ranges on job postings. Many jobs no longer advertise in Colorado now because of it because they don’t want to fall under that blanket.

[ckdarby]

I'm a Canadian, not an American, not questioning your arguments but instead asking for the information because I don't know.

How does NY state enforce their regulation on a company that isn't an entity in that state? If the company is not physically there with an office and has no registered entity there why do they have to comply to anything when they hire someone from that state? Would the employment contract not have a section saying that the contract will be governed by the state of the company entity located in X state (Non-NY)?

[sneak]

States have the ability to render “foreign” (out of state) entities unable to enforce contracts in their state.

They can also issue tax warrants that can seize your out of state entity’s money from an out of state bank account.

These are commonly issued without any burden of proof and banks are legally required to obey them, so it allows any tax authority in any state to rob your account at any time without any evidence of wrongdoing.

This happened to me once; the state of Indiana whole-cloth fabricated nonexistent tax liability because I didn’t file a form with them, and stole all of the money I had in the world out of my Chase bank account in New York. I almost lost my home. Every claim they made was fictitious. Chase charged me $150 or so on top for carrying out the robbery.

Months later, after spending dozens of hours on the phone and filing many forms, I got most of the money back, less $700 or so in “collection fees” (printing and mailing letters is apparently extremely expensive in Indiana), and of course the bank fees.

Now I don’t keep money in banks.

[sneak]

At no point did I advocate for any of those things.

You'll also note that the concept of "the place you reside" is somewhat of a leaky abstraction. Where do you reside if you own 12 flats in 12 different countries and spend 30 days in each of them per year?

Where do you reside if you are actually completely homeless and spend a month each in a different AirBnB living out of a suitcase in 12 different countries in a given year?

The case of having two or three homes in two or three different jurisdictions is a common one, though it usually has some convoluted rules for which qualifies as your "domicile" or "tax home".

[dijit]

There are laws about exactly that, you will have to read them as they apply to you, avoiding them is quite literally illegal.

In Europe, we have freedom of movement for goods and services, special tax status still has to exist between (for example) Denmark and Sweden, for Swedes who travel the bridge to Denmark to work. -- I believe this is called the Oresund agreement.

You must have a primary residence and you must spend 51% of your time there. Other countries in Europe do not permit working from them unless it's temporary, I believe you have 3 months to register with the local tax office.

[asah]

Jumping in: though enforcement is questionable, in many jurisdictions you are required to pay taxes based on where the work was performed, not your "primary residence."

For example, during the recent tax year I moved, my accountant filed my taxes in two states for before and after the move.

Typically, you designate the number of days in each location.

[closeparen]

Your accountant needs to figure out the taxes due to each of the places you worked from. In this situation you might need to file 12 tax returns.

[remflight]

You don’t have an understanding of taxes and immigration law which is why you are advocating for things that you don’t even understand. This is a perfect example of Dunning-Kruger. You should just delete your comments.

Like I said, professional athletes have to pay taxes every day that they pay a game in a state/country. That means even if a professional athlete flies in for a game, and fly out the same day, they still have to pay taxes for the one day they were physically there.

Shakira is facing tax evasion changes and jail time because of a dispute as to where she was living.

You said “it’s nobody’s business where you sleep” which is patently false. Like I said, you are advocating tax evasion by not following the tax rules of every country where you sleep at night.