
Ask HN: How do I legally build a remote dev team? - arcticfox
I&#x27;m a developer and I have a small American business. I see all of these posts about building remote teams distributed across the world and I think &quot;yes, perfect!&quot;, but somehow I&#x27;ve been completely unable to find anyone covering the legality of doing this in detail. For example, I want to be on this list under &quot;Worldwide&quot;:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;jessicard&#x2F;remote-jobs<p>Ideally I want someone that essentially works for us full-time and understands all of our core infra, can maintain it, etc. like an employee would. There seem to be <i>tons</i> of remote-only job postings in this vein.<p>But I don&#x27;t understand how it&#x27;s legal - aren&#x27;t these people being treated as employees, which come with an impossible amount of risk &#x2F; international law &#x2F; messiness attached?<p>Is there perhaps a whitelisted set of countries that have extremely simple employee &#x2F; contractor rules?<p>My worst nightmare is ending up in court for accidentally crossing some line that I didn&#x27;t understand. I just want to hire someone and start building an awesome remote team!
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anandkulkarni
I run a large contract developer team that's globally distributed. The short
answer is that US law permits hiring international contractors who are not
subject to US jurisdiction provided they file a W8-BEN executed by that
contractor certifying their tax exempt status. These contractors are
responsible for paying taxes under their own countries' laws as part of a
mutual tax treaty with the US.

Feel free to email me with questions. If you'd rather just hire one of our
remote developers and not deal with the paperwork yourself, that's another
option. We manage contracts with clients as a US company to insulate them from
needing to set up 1-1 relationships with devs.

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wayn3
what kind of money do you pay them? might be interested in joining.

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anandkulkarni
Shoot me an email (see profile). Happy to share details. Most come from
emerging economies rather than Western Europe, but not all.

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sboselli
I currently work remotely for a NY based company, from South America.

AFAIK, what makes it possible is that we are hired as
freelancers/consultants/contractors under what I understand is a pretty
standard "Work for Hire" contract.

For the tax side of things, the company needs remote workers to sign a W-8BEN
form (W-9 if the remote worker is a US citizen abroad), which states that the
worker takes care by himself of taxes in his own Country.

Hope that helps.

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codegeek
Pretty much this. I also have been hiring remote (outside US) for a US
business and we do a contract with them signing a W-8BEN form. I did a lot of
research and this is what my CPA recommended.

So technically/legally they are not your employees in the same way they will
be if they were working inside the United States. In fact, my CPA calls them
on our tax forms as "overseas contractors".

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kris99999
Being a remote employee (not contractor) for a couple of companies, both of
them established some sort of address in the state. There are "HR" companies
that handle group benefits, payroll, etc. which will have an in-state address
(usually some lawyer's office who is a registered agent for them). There are
likely companies like this that operate internationally, or you could look for
that kind of firm in those countries.

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clueless123
I own a small technology consultancy practice in the US & Peru. We regularly
pick up projects in the US and have them developed overseas. In our case,
business wise, project owners deal with us and we deal with the developers.
That way they enjoy the benefit of working with a US corporation (Local,
insured, easily reachable)

ps. If the reason you want a overseas developer is price, I should mention
that the demand for _good_ developers is quite competitive. A really good
developer overseas, (Who does pays his local taxes and fiscal obligations) is
not going to be much cheaper than one in the US. (but at least they are
available!)

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collyw
I have applied for a couple for remote jobs recently (I am based in Spain).
When I asked they said that I would basically be employed as a freelancer - so
I would need to sort out my own taxes and things.

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cylinder
I am working on a company for this problem. You're right in that you should be
weary of contractor designation as this can lead to legal liability, often in
countries you wouldn't expect. You don't want to setup entities and banking
and such in every country just to employ one or two people.

If anyone's interested, including OP, would love to talk and learn more about
what you're looking for and how my solution can help.

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CCing
Often aren't employee in the legal way that you mean it...but are "hired" as
contractor.

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ge96
One thing to consider is time zones ie. You're awake, employee is asleep. Not
necessarily a bad thing just keep in mind.

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GFischer
Not necessarily. Most of South America is very close or in the same timezone
as the East Coast of the U.S.

There is a time difference with the West Coast though.

I currently work for a Dallas-based company and I work the same hours as their
employees, from Uruguay.

I'm not in the same case as the OP asked, I'm a full employee of a local
subsidiary, but I've worked under a contract and filled a W8-BEN.

~~~
ge96
I see. I work with clients from Germany, Australia, and the Philippines. I
have the time zone problem. But if it's relatively autonomous where they say
"Do this" and you do it then no problem. But if real-time communication is a
thing then it might be problematic still it's not too bad. I'm based in
central United States. 9AM for me is 4PM in Germany for example.

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mherrmann
Are you not afraid of them stealing your code / intellectual property?

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erik998
The linux kernel has so much more intellectual property to steal than your web
app/phone app/sql queries. If your code is that valuable someone will buy your
company. Everything out can be recreated. What can't be recreated is getting
there first... Do yourself a favor, get there first, and fight to be first...
All that myspace/friendster code isn't worth much if you don't get there
first...and keep at it.

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taway_1212
I've heard a story about SV startup (onsite) employees stealing their
startup's code base and launching their own company with it. It turned out to
be more successful than the original one, which eventually tanked. The owners
tried going to court, but they didn't have enough proof to get a search
warrant (or whatever the proper legal term is here) for their fraudulent
competition.

BTW this also shows that having on-site employees is not a protection against
frauds/thieves...

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panbhatt
I want to get hired in your team. I am from Canada. Let's build up something
at panbhatt @ gmail com. Plus transfer of money from US to Canada is too easy

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baybal2
Open a subsidiary in a country with no-nonsence tax law, (i.e. Singapore.)
Bill/pay from it.

