Tax tip: International home office working arrangements

Imagine a client company has told you that it has some employees working overseas on a ‘virtual basis’. So while they may remain UK employees and working for the benefit of the UK company they are physically based in other jurisdictions. What could this mean for the client?

In such circumstances companies often believe that they do not ‘need to do anything’ because the arrangement is only ‘short term’ or ‘ad hoc’ in nature or ‘there is no plan to establish a formal presence in country X’. However these excuses are all likely to be irrelevant from an international perspective. As such while the growth of global tele-working provides companies with opportunities from a talent growth and retention point of view it is important that they do not forget to assess the ‘basic questions’ that arise from a tax and wider governance perspective.

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