[dsign]

> You need a legal body in a country if you want to hire someone on payroll there

Even this is not strictly true. One can often just register a foreign company with the local tax agency for a direct hire. The most frequent scenario is that a foreign hire comes through their own legal entity, as a hired contractor. Now, the sad part of that statement is that often a hire comes as a hired contractor not because of cross-border taxation, but because of tax management reasons. In some EU countries, high value employees cost three euros in taxes for every two euros paid after taxes. A lot of people prefer to set up a corporation that allows them to better manage that majority of their income that goes to the tax office.

[maccard]

That's not employing someone in a different country though, that's contracting. And it's the same arrangement you can use to hire someone in the US from the EU.

[Zanfa]

> One can often just register a foreign company with the local tax agency for a direct hire.

This is the non-contracting employment part of GPs comment. I don’t think it’s frequently used, but it is possible.