Ask HN: Absolutely distant function however not allowed to work outdoors the nation

Phil Tadros · January 21, 2023

2023-01-21 05:45:37

As you move from country to country, employment laws and tax laws change as well.

Your employment contract will probably be illegal in some countries, and this could cause legal troubles for both you and your employer.

Depending on how much time you spend in a country (and this threshold may vary from country to country), you may be required to pay taxes there. This could as well affect the employer, who may also be required to pay part of your taxes.

I’m not saying that it’s impossible, just really really hard, both you and the employer would need to hire an expert on taxes and labor law for each country you go to.

Exactly. What I’ve seen done when people really want to work outside the country is they are given the option to quit and become a contractor. That puts most of the risk on the employee to handle the country specific regulations, along with all the other contractor type risk (and benefits).

(and this threshold may vary from country to country)

To be more specific: this depends on treaties between the country of residence and the country of employment, so it can vary for every combination of countries. It may even mean that taxes are due in both countries (double taxation), and getting a tax waiver in one of them may require legal proceedings and/or expensive accountants.

Could also be for IP reasons. There are legal technicalities that I don’t pretend to understand: One contract I worked on required the work to be performed in a specific Canton in Switzerland. Once the work laptops had IP on them, the machines were not allowed out of that Canton. Had something to do with international IP law that was never clear to me.

Switzerland is a decentralized federal state where cantons get a great deal of autonomy, eg Zug (near Zurich) is famous for having low taxes and being very friendly to crypto companies.

Many US companies are also unwilling to let remote staff operate in states where they don’t have operations, because they’re concerned about creating a “nexus” there and becoming liable for state sales taxes etc.

Because it is most likely illegal for you to work in that country you choose, unless both you and your company satisfy a lot of requirements (for most countries) including work visa and company having physical presence in that country or digital nomad visa. Though it’s true that a lot of nomads get away with it, but a lot of companies don’t want that hassle/risk.

They’re worried that they would be deemed as being partially located in the country you work from, and would have to deal with that country’s tax authority, employment regulations, etc.

A lot of companies have contracts stating that all data will be processed in their country. Anyone working outside the country would breach those contracts.

Without being an expert: I know large companies that have a remote-first, fixed country policy, but allow exceptions under special circumstances (e.g., for family reasons). My assumption is that if one wants to support an employee in a good way, it’s worth the paperwork in case of such special circumstances, but it’s an unacceptable risk to allow it by default and try to play catch-up as a substantial part of the workforce moves around the globe.

If even for small amounts of time, you can ask about how small, and if that also means you’re not allowed to answer calls from work when on vacation. It may very well be that you’re not even allowed to bring a work phone or work laptop into some countries.

In my experience both same time zone, and meeting up regularly (eg once a month) are important for making remote working as effective as possible. This can lead to a same country policy.

If I was starting a new remote organisation now I’d allow a number of weeks a year to work more remotely in other countries. It would be disruptive and impact meeting scheduling, so I think is most effective when planned like a holiday.

Another odd factor is envy which oddly gets blended mentally with audio quality. If the boundaries of remote get stretched, you end up with staff with tropical islands in the background and often worse or unreliable internet, and often a poor semi-temporary audio setup.

I rationally like the idea of everyone working in amazing locations. But in reality, while people joke about it, emotionally they get envious. Not a fair reason, but I can imagine some business owners blocking it just for that.

It seems difficult for the company to ensure that you have a work permit for any country you might be going to.

There are countries where you really don’t want to get caught working without a work permit, but even in more lenient places in general it’s just dangerous for the company to be caught in this situation.

And to legalise that work (even between EU countries) means they have to get involved with yet another fiscal system which is probably a lot of overhead for just one guy wanting to work in any country he likes.

also not mentioned below is time zone, they may just be going the assumption they want someone present 9-5 and by being same country and time zone you’ll be online parallel to the team. Some explicitly mention the timezone and not the physical location as well. This as well as the other comments on government reasons.

Employing people abroad is a bit of a hassle. Maybe you need a local entity, or use an agency, or have self-employed freelancers etc. One country = much less headache.

One unfortunate thing I have learnt through experience: it’s not a good idea to do business with anybody unless it’s relatively easy and convenient to sue them or have them arrested, if need be.

Breaking your leg in Thailand is much cheaper than breaking your leg in the USA.

I strongly doubt insurance comes into it. It’ll be tax and legal liability.

Is that true? I’d guess that Thai medicine is a lot cheaper. I have digital nomad-style insurance and I kind of assume that my co-pays will be less than those in the US. American Healthcare is crazy expensive.

Anecdote: I once got sick in Luxembourg (pretty expensive country overall) without health insurance. Saw a doctor in the format of urgent care. Got prescribed antibiotics + something else. Total cost for doc + drugs was 40 euros. No way I get off that easily in the States.

Also not mentioned: Visas and permits. Not allowing it for a “relatively small amount of time” means that you aren’t encouraging your employees to go to a country on “vacation” and working through it, all while being on a tourist visa that doesn’t actually allow you to work while you are visiting. This is a pretty common rule for a tourist visa.

The things others have said are valid as well.

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