When you’re working and enjoying a location independent lifestyle, you’re always aware that things work a little differently. In my case, I try to keep U.S. hours to be as minimally disruptive and regularly available to my team as I’m able. I’ve never hidden the fact that I took this job because it afforded us the freedom to travel.
So, it came as a surprise three weeks ago when my new manager contacted me and said that HR had some questions. Specifically, they asked to clarify:
- Tax Implications: We’ll need to understand in what countries Ehren has worked out of and for how long?
- Immigration: Do we know how Ehren has entered each of these countries over the last year (What kind of visa/travel authorization)? Does Ehren have citizenship in any of those countries?
Again, we’ve made no attempt to disguise our intentions or experiences to our family, my manager or my coworkers and all of these details are readily available right here on anyroadtoeverywhere.com. We truthfully provided every requested detail as concisely as possible the day I was asked, 3 weeks ago. And then… we sat here and speculated.
Will we have to pay additional income tax to these other countries?
Will they require us to return to the US?
Is it possible that we’ve done anything wrong that could cause us to be blacklisted in any of the countries we visited?
Are there any grounds for termination of employment?
Considering that they’ve put two HR employees on duty to get to the bottom of this, am I causing undue effort to my employer that will compromise my value to the company?
It’s been those same questions repeatedly swirling in our minds for nearly a month, and it doesn’t seem like there’s any urgency on their behalf to provide the answers.
So, I’m writing this article in that uncertain time.
Talking to my manager “I think what you’re doing is awesome and I hope we can accommodate”. Talking to family, I hear… “Oh no! What are you going to do?” and “Does that mean you’re coming home?” (love ya mom!). I’ve been counseled that because I have been entirely transparent, that my boss knew my plans and my execution while it was happening there should be no grounds for termination. I’ve been forwarded articles authored by self-professed non-experts like this:
https://wifitribe.co/blog/legal-and-tax-myths-for-us-citizens-working-remotely/
First, let me say how appreciative I am to have so much support and compassion from family and friends. It’s truly comforted me.
What does this mean?
I’ll say that I wouldn’t trade the last 10+ months of experiences for anything, simultaneously acknowledging how grateful I feel to my employer and how unlikely it is I could find a similar job that would afford us this lifestyle. I wouldn’t change anything because I’ve grown closer to Evalynn and I’ve learned so much about me, about us and have experienced something new EVERY day since January 3rd… I would go back to the US in a heartbeat to keep my job. But I’ll always be looking for a way to live as we are now.
I’ve realized that this is just one more of those uncertainties that we’ve encountered – that we eagerly anticipated when we sold our cars and our furniture, when we boarded that first plane and chose to “see what happens”. And as much as we came out here to experience the culture in Australia and Vietnam and Croatia, this is the location independent culture, and we’re still figuring it out.
Sorry… there’s no resolution yet.
I intentionally wrote this prior to resolution because it is scary. Because it’s always easy to put your feelings to a question with an answer, but how will you allow things to affect you when you don’t have the answer?
In our case, apart from a couple slightly more serious discussions full of speculation, the only thing this current state of not-knowing has caused us to rethink is planning more than we already have booked. We’ll live 2 weeks at a time until we have more certainty. And that’s kinda how we were living anyway.
Part 2 forthcoming – where I relay the answers we’re given.