Telecommuting from Japan to California - Is it possible?

clambake asks: "Well, the long and short of it is I'll be moving to Japan next month as my wife is returning to finish her Master's degree in Tokyo. I have an excellent job now in Silicon Valley, and I'd love to keep working here from abroad, but it looks like California lawmakers have it out for me. Despite my company's willingness to keep me on, the labor laws make it very difficult, if not impossible, to do so when I don't physically work in the country. I can't work as a contractor for my own company either, as there are laws in place to 'protect' me from my employer trying to demote me to contractor to save on paying benefits. Is there anyone out there who's been through a similar situation and who would be willing to post their success or failure stories?"

Comments

All together now:

[Elwood P Dowd]

TALK TO A LAWYER.

Talk to a lawyer? Talk to a lawyer!

Perhaps, if you haven't considered consulting with a lawyer, you may wish to talk to a lawyer. Alternatively, if you have some kind of problem with lawyers, you should talk to a lawyer.

Talk to a lawyer. Talk to a lawyer. Talk to a lawyer.

Someone needs to make a song about this.

what they don't know won't hurt them

[jfruhlinger]

I worked for 8 months from Germany, but my legal address was a Mailboxes Etc. box in Berkeley, CA. This is a better option than a US PO Box because your address will look "real" -- mine was "1536 Solano Ave. #248" -- 1536 Solano Ave. being the location of the Mailboxes Etc. and 248 being the box number. I set the box up near a friend of mine who agreed to collect my checks, deposit them by mail, and forward the interesting stuff to me, but Mailboxes Etc. will be happy to forward everything to your overseas address once a week or whatever for a fee.

In short, I had a legal address in CA and no one asked any questions. Since I am a freelancer and work from home anyway, the administrative end of the comanies I worked with didn't know the difference -- to them, it just looked like I had moved somewhere else in CA -- and the IRS and California Franchise Tax Board didn't care either.

From other posts you've made responding to similar suggestions, it sounds like your comany lawyers are a little uncomfortable with the idea, and they will obviously have the final say. But really, I think if you find a friend with a CA address who is willing to say that you live with him or her, and who will do little things like put your name on their mailbox, I don't think anyone can touch you. Pay a nominal fee to your friend for rent. Make sure you come back to CA several times a year, and be sure to stay at "your" home when you do. Register to vote at your new address, and do so, by absentee ballot if necessary. Get everything in Japan in your wife's name. It seems to me that if you do all this it would take a determined effort to prove you're doing something illegal.

jf

Is this so different from a business trip?

[polymath69]

supposedly it actually matter where you physically do the work, not where you live.

My old company used to send me all over on business -- to India, Brazil, and other places, for extended stays, yet never had any trouble with simply continuing my pay and benefits as usual. Granted that I'm not in California, but surely Californians face the same situation all the time? I've never run into anyone who stopped getting paid over a business trip.

You're going over, and you're going to do business, right? So it could be a business trip of unusual duration.