Employee requests to work from abroad - General - Flexible and hybrid working

21 Employee requests to work from abroad

12 Jan, 2024 15:25

Hello all, we have found an increase in requests from employees wanting to work from abroad. Currently, we do not offer any secondment to work abroad or have any of our employees working abroad for any given duration as we are a national business therefore, there is no business need. Has anyone else in any other business experienced these types of requests and what have been the considerations to accept or reject these? The main concerns we have with these requests is tax, GDPR, how to distinguish what is a holiday and the abuse of introducing this method of working, health and safety and many more. Is there anyone that adopts a policy or allows working from abroad on a personal basis and not for business reasons that is able to provide some insight into how did you overcome these concerns and what approval processes have been implemented ?

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Rosie | 0 Posts

21 May, 2024 06:32

In reply to Robey:
I spoke to an employment lawyer specialising in hiring internationally recently, who advised me that whilst IR35 wouldn't be a concern, many countries have laws prohibiting misclassification of workers that would apply, especially if that person is found to be a disguised employee so the employer can avoid dealing with the tax implications in that country, potential ramifications being financial penalties. If they were pursuing this option, it would be an idea to at least have a fairly lengthy break between being an employee and returning as a contractor, and for that contractor to take some other jobs on the side etc.
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Kathryn Macrae | 0 Posts

21 May, 2024 09:16

In reply to Steve Bridger:

Hi Steve
It has come up as a flexible working request, initially for a 2 year period in Portugal to accompany a spouse.
We already have an employee (UK national) who has been working in Bali for 9 months, an arrangement which predates my time here, but does have some basis in business need as we have projects in SE Asia.
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Gary | 0 Posts

22 May, 2024 07:35

In reply to Kathryn Macrae:
Yes they do.

My parents, when they were still working, had an Icelandic bank account (long story, don't ask, and didn't end well either) but as their work was performed in the UK, they were subject to UK tax rules even though their bank was in Iceland.
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Robey | 0 Posts

22 May, 2024 10:33

In reply to Kathryn Macrae:

what should I be including in an agreement for the employee to sign?

I mean... if your Directors are content with the risk inherent in... breaking the law... then you should probably not ask them to sign anything your Directors don't want to have shown to them by a lawyer working on behalf of the HMRC who is prosecuting them for tax evasion...
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Helen | 0 Posts

22 May, 2024 11:47

In reply to Robey:
Kathryn the directors may like to bear in mind corporate tax liabilities and cost of the advice on that as it's not just the employee tax situation that you need to worry about. I have found explaining that we will incur a five figure sum for some basic tax advice before even starting anything tends to help their decision making lean more towards "no".
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Teresa | 0 Posts

22 May, 2024 15:57

In reply to Helen:
There is also the risk of being found in breach of Portuguese Employment law as if the person is resident in Portugal, you would need to ensure that you are complying with their employment laws. That can often be a bigger risk than the tax issues
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