Contracting / working abroad and right to work

[jtotheb]

Hi,

I'm just about to sign a new contract with the potential that they may require me to travel to the USA for some periods of time as part of the assignment. I'm relatively new to this so go easy on me...

Am I able to just travel to the USA and work as a contractor? My contract will be with a UK based company with offices in California. I use to work for a large consultancy and people there used to travel and work all over the world but it's just dawned on me that it might be a different situation if you're a permanent employee rather than a contractor.

I'm my own LTD company if that helps answer the question!

TIA...

[stek]

Hi,

I'm just about to sign a new contract with the potential that they may require me to travel to the USA for some periods of time as part of the assignment. I'm relatively new to this so go easy on me...

Am I able to just travel to the USA and work as a contractor? My contract will be with a UK based company with offices in California. I use to work for a large consultancy and people there used to travel and work all over the world but it's just dawned on me that it might be a different situation if you're a permanent employee rather than a contractor.

I'm my own LTD company if that helps answer the question!

TIA...

No, not without a work visa. Business meetings etc ok but not actual work. Only way is if the UK based Co employed you and transferred you to US office on an L1 visa I think its is.

[jamesbrown]

No, not without a work visa. Business meetings etc ok but not actual work. Only way is if the UK based Co employed you and transferred you to US office on an L1 visa I think its is.

Agreed, although the OP could seek a US employer directly (e.g. sponsoring an H-1B).

OP: as described, you couldn't work in the US. You're free to attend meetings and participate in "non-productive" work in the US under the visa waiver (assuming you meet all the conditions of the visa waiver), but you cannot do the sort of work an employee or onsite contractor might do without a work visa and, in this context, a work visa means an employment visa. Contracting in the US on a visa is impossible.

[northernladuk]

We had a poster ask this same question in the last week or two. A quick search would have found this and other threads similar to help........

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=co...m=122&ie=UTF-8

[jjdarg]

Beware of the Green Card...

Whatever you do, unless you plan on living in the US for the rest of your life, avoid applying for a Green Card or citizenship (and liquidate your UK assets before you do). Get a more temporary visa if you want to work there.

Anything more permanent will put you permanently in their tax system, barring formal renunciations and loads of tax returns, and as a UK business owner you will have to provide a parallel set of accounts to the IRS (along with about 100 other pages of information.)

Tax preparation for US Green Card holders and citizens abroad, especially ones who own businesses can be a pain and usually involve a lawyer as most plain accountants have no clue on managing the hundreds of pages of rules applying to overseas taxpayers. On the notorious FBAR form you can be charged $10,000 per mistake or misrepresentation of what you are holding in your UK bank account. And if you thought dealing with Hector was a chore here in Blighty, wait till you the IRS gets hold of you.

Plus the USG will want a slice of the capital gains when you go to sell your British house. Pensions and ISAs are also a tricky area.

- From an ex-US Citizen who found out the real costs of having a life abroad.

[jamesbrown]

Yeah The personal tax returns are pretty straightforward for earned income abroad, but tougher for unearned income like dividends (and, like you say, the peculiarities of ISA/SIPP status). But personal returns are a cakewalk in comparison to some of the business returns, like Subpart F income from Controlled Foreign Corporations, where a single bloody form costs several thousands dollars for a tax specialist to prepare. Nightmare. You don't want to be contracting overseas with a foreign company as a US citizen, that's for sure. Hence the explosion of US expats giving up their US citizenship.

[jjdarg]

You don't want to be contracting overseas with a foreign company as a US citizen, that's for sure. Hence the explosion of US expats giving up their US citizenship.

Very much a large part of why I gave mine up. My entire economic life is here in the UK, there is no advantage to staying in the US system (especially when it costs a couple thousand a year to tell the USG that you don't owe them any money...)