Can my employer prevent me, as a remote employee, from moving to another state? I am currently a remote employee in CO (employer is in AZ). I want to switch states to OR (my employer already has remote W2 employees in OR). My employer already pays state tax there, insurance etc. though they have no building there just as they have no building in CO. Theoretically, there should be zero difference to them, I have confirmed this with payroll. I have confirmed with my manager, and that individual could not care less where I live. I have also discovered, their per-employee cost basis (for remote) is lower in OR than in CO. It does require a lot of approvals however in our system to change my W2, both with payroll, my manager, my manager's manager and the HR Director + a few others. Some of these individuals are a little personally put off that I'm moving to OR instead of AZ where headquarters is at. If at any point along the way I am denied (I can't think of a valid reason), do I have any legal recourse to force the issue - would it be worth the attempt? Can a company let me go for no other reason than - I moved to a location that hurt their feelings? For example, can my employer say: "We never offered a job to you in OR"? etc.
As Tom says and these guys reiterate (I'm quoting those guys), "Employment relationships are presumed to be “at-will” in all U.S. states except Montana. The U.S. is one of a handful of countries where employment is predominantly at-will". Montana (Dept. of Labor and Industry) also states that they are the only ones in the US like that. Montana Code 39-2-904(1)(b) states that a discharge is unlawful if "the discharge was not for good cause and the employee had completed the employer's probationary period of employment". (2)(a) then states that "During a probationary period of employment, the employment may be terminated at the will of either the employer or the employee on notice to the other for any reason or for no reason". There is a presumptive 6 month probationary period in case an employer say nothing, but it could be longer or shorter (it can be 7 years for university professors, and I don't find anything in the code preventing an employer from setting the probationary period at 50 years).
In general, in the US, employers have very wide latitude in how they decide whether or not to hire someone. There are specific factors like race, sex, national origin, disability status, etc, on which they cannot discriminate, but otherwise they can do as they please. It would be perfectly legal for a company to decline to hire you because you had previously sued them.
Yes, this is a valid concern As written, every piece of IP you produce while employed belongs to the employer. This includes your hypothetical game. It also includes your weekly shopping lists, your Christmas card to your Great-Aunt Nellie, the … a-hm … private video you make of you and your significant other. As written this is overly broad and probably unenforceable. However, it’s always better to have clear and legally enforceable clauses in your agreements because unclear, arguably unenforceable ones lead to disputes. To be fair, the employer has probably lifted some (bad) boilerplate and hasn’t actually thought through what it means. Get it redrafted.
Yes, you can be fired for "not being a good fit": New York State is generally considered to be an "employment at will" state, which means that a private sector employer can pretty much hire and fire as he or she pleases and a discharged employee usually will have no legal recourse even when the discharge is unfair or unreasonable. Source: New York State Office of the Attorney General
It is a false statement to claim to live in one county when you actually live in a different one. It becomes perjury (a crime) when you falsely swear to that statement on your status report, and you are required to report changes in &quot;household situation&quot; within 10 days. There isn't an exception allowing you to give a false address &quot;in case it costs more to report truthfully&quot;. The only legal solutions are to report truthfully and pay more, or move again, report truthfully, and not pay more.
The company probably owes U.S. and state corporate income taxes because income from services performed in the United States are usually considered "effectively connected" with the United States. The fact that the servers are located in the U.S. is pretty much irrelevant, relative to the fact that the services are performed while located in the United States. I can't think of a single tax case that has ever turned on the location of the servers in a company. Unlike a U.S. company, a foreign company is not taxed by the U.S. on its worldwide income, nor is the individual, a non-resident alien (having an F-1 visa rather than a green card) taxes on the individual's worldwide income. But, a non-U.S. person is still taxed on income that is effectively connected with the United States. Generally speaking income from property is not effectively connected with the United States merely because it is managed by someone located in the U.S., so if the company had owned an apartment in Brazil that it received rental income from, for example, that would not be subject to U.S. taxation. Also income from intangible property (like interest payments on loans or dividends on publicly held stock) is generally not subject to U.S. taxation if paid to a non-resident, non-citizen of the U.S. But, generally speaking, income from the performance of services is taxable in the place where the services are performed. For example, Colorado can impose state income taxes on income earned by a Texas baseball player while playing at a stadium in Denver. The lack of a salary or employee status shouldn't change the fact that the income received by the company from performance of services in the U.S. is effectively connected with the United States. When the owner performs services in the U.S., the company is performing services in the U.S. and so it is subject to taxation in the U.S. Dividend payments from the offshore company probably wouldn't be subject to U.S. taxation in this scenario, but the company itself would be subject to corporate income taxes in the U.S. from the profits it earned from the services performed in the U.S.
What happens to a corporation, or any of its executives, when that corporation is dissolving but has unpaid state franchise tax fees that it does not have the assets to pay? You can't get blood out of a turnip, even if you are the tax collector. This said, if assets were transferred without consideration to someone, the tax due could be recovered from the recipient of the assets in a fraudulent transfer action against that recipient. Can these corporation liabilities transfer to their executives? Depends upon what the applicable state statute says. More than one state has franchise taxes and the consequences for violating them are not the same. The magnitude of the taxes are also not the same. In some states it is basically an annually filing fee of a couple of hundred dollars or less, and simply forcing the corporation to dissolve for nonpayment would be considered punishment enough. In California, franchise taxes amount to a full fledged and significant state level corporate income tax. Many states impose personal liability as a matter of law on directors of corporations that pay dividends or make liquidating distributions to owners of a corporation when it is insolvent.
A special case is not paying the income tax that the company is supposed to be paying on behalf of its employees. If an employee makes £4,000 a month, and the employer is supposed to pay £1,000 tax and doesn't, that's not the employer's money, that's the employee's money. Not paying the employee's money is a much more serious matter than not paying your own taxes. A google search found this article http://www.gaebler.com/Not-Paying-Payroll-Taxes.htm which says that a person not paying taxes for employees is personally liable, that this liability does not go away with bankruptcy, and that jail is possible. So their advice is: Whatever other debt you have, paying taxes for your employees' payroll is the absolutely highest priority (higher priority than paying wages, paying the rent, paying company taxes and so on).