I know there are many people here who work for US companies from outside the US. Do you guys primarily work as contractors? If you are regular employees, do you get a US W-2? If you are not a US Citizen, I guess you will be treated as a non-resident for tax purposes? Is that favorable to you? Let us discuss these financial aspects here.
When I did this as a contractor I gave my employer a W8-BEN form, which affirms you are a non-resident from a country with a tax treaty with the US. Then I was paid my full rate by my US employer (no tax withheld), and I paid tax at the end of the year in my own country at the self-employed rate.<p>I believe this will differ greatly based on how your company prefers likes to handle things, how your government likes to tax things, and whether you set yourself up as self-employed, contractor, employee, corp, sole tradership etc. I'd highly recommend seeing a local accountant or similar.
We are a registered company in India.<p>We work as a Freelancer or Contractor with USA based companies.<p>We do not need to file any US Taxes or do not require a W8-BEN form.<p>When we work with India based clients we need to charge them GST or Local Taxes.<p>We receive Client payments in terms of Remittance & need to declare payment is against the Software Services extended to an organisation or individual outside India.<p>Our taxation is handled by Charter Accountants.
I am a Canadian Citizen who owns my own business (registered as a Sole Proprietorship) and I do contract work and consulting for US clients sometimes.<p>I am living outside the US as well so thankfully I don't have US tax, the biggest difference for me is that I don't need to charge US clients sales tax where I live, but for local clients I do need to collect an additional tax and pass that on to the government.
I am not a lawyer. My understanding is: non-citizens non-residents are contractors and the work is carried out outside of the US so it is "non US sourced". If any of the three above conditions are not true, then the US based company must withhold taxes. The contractor must submit the correct WBEN forms to the US co, to declare this.
My impression is that if you are an employee, you are typically hired by local company in country you live. This local company will be structured as a subsidiary of the US corporation. So US taxes are irrelevant.